Speaking Mandarin

I’m a cheap guy. When I want something, I find the cheapest way to buy it. Sometimes I hunt down the generic equivalent, which is why you see references to Fruit Rings and Crispy Hexagons on this blog instead of their slightly more expensive name-brand equivalents. Sometimes I buy in ridiculous quantities from the club store, which is how I wind up eating two-pounds of cherries after the kids try one and simultaneously decide they don’t like them. Sometimes I shop the discount stores, even venturing into the scary one where produce sits without refrigeration all day and they charge you for shopping bags. Sometimes, usually for clothes, I check rummage sales for cheap goods that have been used, gently or otherwise. I can usually find stuff fairly cheap, but my cheapskate tactics are breaking down with mandarin oranges, though.

Abbie loves mandarin oranges. That’s not just coming from me, that’s what a note from her preschool said. The “loves” part was capitalized and underlined, so you know she enjoyed them. I don’t know what she did at preschool, but if she ate like she did at home, she swallowed her serving within seconds of it appearing before her, and screamed for more before the server could tend to the next child. When she didn’t get more, she threw a tantrum, hit someone, and spent the next several minutes in timeout while cooling down from orange rage.

Abbie used to love fruit, but now mandarin oranges are the only fruit she wants to eat. She’ll still eat things like grapes and canned apricots under protest. She’ll also eat most fruits mixed with whipped topping, but it’s cheating to coat fruit with whipped topping. Mandarin oranges are a perfect side dish or snack, and if Abbie wants to eat them, I want to buy them.

My problem is mandarin oranges are hard to find. I haven’t seen fresh mandarin oranges in Iowa, so I can’t buy them fresh. I tried a fresh navel orange, but she wouldn’t touch it, possibly because she was holding out for whipped topping. The boys wouldn’t eat it either, so I had a tasty side dish for lunch that day. Oranges don’t freeze well, or to be more specific, they don’t thaw well, so I can’t buy them frozen either. That leaves canned mandarin oranges as my only option.

I love canned fruit. It’s cheap, peeled, and usually pre-cut. Just set it in front of the kids and pull your hand back quickly before it inadvertently winds up in their mouths. I usually buy big cans of fruit because, even though Abbie won’t eat most of it, the boys plow through it in a couple of days. Bigger cans are more cost-effective, and need to be opened and less frequently, making them less of a pain in the butt than smaller cans. Mandarin oranges, though, only come in two sizes of cans: A tiny size that Abbie can eat in one sitting, and a slightly larger size that Abbie could still eat in one sitting but I only give half to her at a time so I don’t have to open a new can the next day.

Why can’t I find large cans of mandarin oranges? The club store sells peaches, pears, and fruit cocktail in half-dozen-pound can size. They sell eight-packs of the slightly larger size cans, but they’re name brand and not cost-effective. I buy generic tiny cans at the grocery store for less per ounce than the club store, and yes, I checked with a calculator, because I’m a cheap guy. For now I’m buying those kind of expensive tiny cans and letting Abbie consume one a day. Maybe I’ll save money and find a case of them at a garage sale some day.