Crumbs

Just thought I'd riff on the word "Crumbs" for a change.

Crumbs - small pieces of stuff, often edible, like the crumbs Hansel and Gretel dropped behind them hoping to be able to find their way home after their stepmother sent them off to pick berries in a fit of pique because they knocked over a jub of milk while dancing. Not too bright since the birds ate them up. Also, if they were starving, where did the crumbs come from? I actually, kind of understand where the step mother was coming from - how many times have I raged at my own children for just such indiscretions? Thankfully the consequences were a lot less harsh in my case.

Fairy tales can teach us a lot about the human psyche as well as being cautionary tales. A modern rendition of H & G could be that the harshness of their stepmother towards them made them feel rejected and drove them from the home at a too early age, leaving them vulnerable to pimps and drug dealers, not quite witches, but destructive and predatory nonetheless. Ok, Ok, being turned into drug addicts and prostitutes isn't quite the same as being turned into gingerbread men, but you must admit, all will eventually be consumed. Also, being an addict means yielding up your will to dependency on an innanimate object which sucks the humanity right out of you and you end up walking around like a soulless ghost of a person or a gingerbread man. Sort of.

As a youth, many, many, many, many years ago, we used to use "Crumbs" or "Crumbo" or "Crumb" as a second rate expletive. Also, in the same vein, "crumby", has the meaning of being cheap or poorly made or worthless. I wonder if that is because it might disintegrate into crumbs shortly after purchase thereby proving its lack of quality. Hmm???

Then there's the use of "crumbs" to signify an amount of a gift or raise that is far below what we think we deserve and verges on being an insult. As in, "that !@#@$# gave me mere crumbs - I'm tempted to throw all it back in his face!"

I actually value crumbs, if they are not in my bed, because I feed them to the birds. Or try to feed them to the birds. The squirrels often whip in before the birds even notice them and snatch them up in their greedy little gobs.

Well, this is all pretty uninspired, perhaps not even worth posting, but I'll probably go ahead and post it anyway.