Can’t find the sugar? Look in the rice jar!

AT THE weekend, I asked my wife where we kept the sugar. ‘In the kitchen cupboard on the top shelf,’ she said. After spending some time figuring out which cupboard she meant, I still couldn’t find the sugar.

I did discover the coffee, which was in a tin marked ‘flour’. The flour was in another tin without a label. I tried a tin marked ‘baking soda’, but this held gravy powder. Coarse salt was in the custard powder tin and the tea caddy was full of sultanas. I decided I’d have to ask my wife again, but I knew she’d be annoyed. ‘I still can’t find the sugar,’ I said. She flew into the kitchen, opened a cupboard and took an old biscuit tin from the top shelf. She opened it and brought out a small blue jar marked ‘rice’. She pulled off the lid and held it out for me to inspect. You guessed it, sugar! ‘Why do we keep it there?’ I asked. ‘Kitchens often get damp and that makes sugar go hard and lumpy. So to keep it dry I put the jar in the old biscuit tin,’ she explained.

I persevered: ‘But why in a rice jar?’

She looked up to the heavens and sighed with exasperation: ‘Because we keep the lentils in the sugar jar.’

Lee Whitehead, Oldham, Lancs.