So today we went over to my Mom and Dad's for my Dad's 85th birthday. (Happy birthday, Dad!) We're giving my older sister (who is deaf and low-vision/legally blind) a ride home, and while we were there we were going to set up her new printer and her new large-print keyboard that interfaces to her text magnifier software.

She wanted to stop at Kroger on the way home and we said sure. She said she only needed to pick up two things and that she would write it down because it was very specific and her SSP (support service provider) who helps with her grocery shopping and other things had gotten it wrong earlier in the week.

We get to the parking lot and the Mrs. rummages around in the glove box and finds a pen and a piece of paper and hands them to my sister. My sister writes something and hands it back to the Mrs., who was going in to get whatever it was my sister needed.

The paper says "unintended consequences," and under that it says "no consequences."

continued...

The Mrs. is understandably confused. She turns the paper over and there's nothing there, and there's nothing written anywhere else. She hands it to me and asks if I know what my sister is talking about. I look at it and I'm puzzled, too.

So I ask my sister, what's that?

Now, you have to understand that my sign language is pretty bad, and sometimes I have a hard time reading it, too. My sister can barely see my poor signing, which sort of tends to compound things.

She seems as puzzled as me when I asked her what she was talking about. She says you know, the no-sugar kind. And not the Kroger brand. Those make me sick.

I'm like, ok, fine, I get that. But what is it? What is a "no consequences?" She looks very confused, and I'm wondering if maybe she can't see me well enough to understand what I'm asking or maybe my signing has gotten even worse. Then she says something about you know, popsicles? The no-sugar kind?

Ah. So now we're at least narrowing it down. But I've never heard of "no consequences" or "unintended consequences" popsicles, and neither has the Mrs. I figure it must be some new diet fad thing or something.

So I say OK, you come in with us and we will find them and make sure you get exactly what it is you are looking for.

We go in the store, with me guiding her and her tap-tap-tapping with her white cane, right to the novelty section of the ice cream freezer. She points to the Popsicles. After a bit of reading labels to her, we finally narrow it down to the Popsicle brand no-sugar 24 pack. She wants two boxes of them.

Great. As we're leaving I ask why she wrote "no consequences" and "low consequences" and why would she call Popsicles that? She looks at me like I'm crazy. She says she didn't write "no consequences" and that she doesn't understand what I'm talking about. Now I'm thinking she's gone crazy.

So we check out and get back to the car, and the Mrs. says hey let me see that piece of paper. Then she gets the pen out of the glove box, and tries to write on the paper. The pen is out of ink. She turns the paper over and looks closely, and we can see the faint imprint of "popsicles, 24 pack, no sugar, not the kroger brand. two boxes."

Mystery solved. (The Mrs. is smart like that.) My sister couldn't really see what she was writing, and in good faith probably didn't figure we would give her a pen that was out of ink to write with. I explained the confusion and we all had a good laugh.

Now the mystery is, why did we have a piece of paper in the glove box with the words "unintended consequences" and "no consequences" written on it?

Must have been important at the time.