Child of the Corn

Yesterday I ended up helping grill corn at the family reunion. My cousin's wife had volunteered to do it but had no recent corn grilling experience. I did. I went from 'supervising' to 'helping' to 'doing'. This was fine. There were two grills. There was a lot of corn. We had a good time doing it.

Just in front of the grills was a table with a pot of melted butter and a salt shaker. My cousin, the husband of the lady grilling with me, was helping people butter and salt the completed ears while we continued to grill and we chattered good-naturedly, trying to 'sell' the corn. People came up, got corn, got buttered and salted. People claimed to like that. Enough people claimed it that I was inclined to believe it. Hooray for that.

Later into the process, the young daughter of one of my many other cousins came for corn. She's maybe six or seven, just old enough to be clever, but not old enough to really be snotty about it or anything. Rather than just dip her ear of corn in the pot of melted butter, she decided to use the brush my aunt had supplied. "Ah, painting your corn I see." I commented.

Her brow wrinkled slightly. "I'm not painting," she noted, sounding confused.

"You're using a brush, sure looks like painting from here."

"But it's not changing color," she insisted. "When you paint something, it changes color."

"It is changing color," noted my cousin that wasn't her father. "It's turning butter colored. Butter yellow." Over the course of the next minute or so, we playfully did our best to convince her that the corn was yellow and the butter was yellow so the color change wasn't obvious but that she was painting. I was amused.

Sometime later she returned. "I want to paint another corn." We had plenty of corn and were happy to be rid of more of it. If she was eager to eat it, go right ahead. "I didn't know you could paint corn."

"Well there you are, you learned something."

While focusing on her painting of the corn, she answered "You should learn something new everyday."

This kid is using my lines on me. Outstanding! "There you go then; you've learned your thing for today. You can be done now."

My mother happened to be going past. "Don't tell her that!" Mom started chit-chatting with her about going to school and learning more than one thing a day and whatever else. They headed off.

Did I tell you that I grilled a LOT of corn? We were nearly done when she returned again. We had a lot of corn done at this point, over and above what would be eaten. I had yet to eat at all but at least my cousin had been nice enough to get me a PBR at one point. "I wanna paint more corn. Do you think anyone else wants any corn?" We had no clue. There wasn't really anyone else around us at the time. If she found someone that wanted corn, have at her. She started walking around the house, asking people if they wanted any more corn. She got a couple 'buyers' and was able to paint corn for them.

Luckily for her I hadn't eaten and was keen for corn at this point rather than sick of it. She got to paint my corn. I watched as she carefully brushed the ear, going side-to-side, rotating it to catch every angle before going over the ear again with a downwards stroke to ensure every crevasse of the corn had received butter. She did something similar with the salt that was a little too much salt at times but wasn't a bad thing.

When I was done with the first, she asked about a second. I was keen for another, perhaps a third after that, depending on how full I was after the second. I selected an ear for her to paint and off she went. When it was ready, she offered me a napkin as well because it is messy eating. When I was done with the second, she was waiting. "You need another one, don't you?" Yes I did.

Three was my limit. She did a good job. If anyone needs a corn painter, I'd be a reference for her in a heart-beat.