MANDY FLYNN: Boiling over peanut disrespect

Judging people is something I try hard not to do. Sometimes, I fail.

Miserably.

I present to you the case of the woman the other day who said boiled peanuts are disgusting. But she didn’t stop there. Boiled peanuts, she said, are trashy. Trashy, like some people throw boiled peanut shells on the floor like trash trashy? Or, trashy like people who eat boiled peanuts are trashy people?

I didn’t care which she meant. The words flew from my lips like water bursting through a dam with a crack in it — I had no control.

“Seriously?” I squealed maybe a little shriller than I intended. “Have you ever even had boiled peanuts?”

She wrinkled her lips and nose like she smelled something bad. Gave a little sniff.

Shrugged her shoulders and flipped her hair a smidge pretentiously before she spoke.

“No, we don’t eat boiled peanuts where I come from. It’s not what we do.”

My mind flooded with questions. Where do you come from? What exactly do you do? Do you think I’m trashy because, I’ll tell you right now, I love boiled peanuts? If I had some I’d eat them right in front of you and make all kinds of I love boiled peanut noises just to spite you. Girl, you have no right to judge my peanuts when you’ve never even tried them.

That’s what came to mind but, thankfully, not out of my mouth. That would be rude.

That’s not what I do.

“I love boiled peanuts,” I said with a smile. “You really should try them and give them a chance.”

Did she just roll her eyes at me?

“Doubtful,” she said. “I have better things to do.”

Oh, no she just didn’t.

Stop. Why was I — a perfectly sane 40-something-year-old woman — ready to rumble with a complete stranger over her blatant disrespect of a boiled legume? Had she insulted my mama? No.

Had she threatened my children? No. There is the slight chance she insinuated I am trashy, but I’m still not sure. I am the first to admit I may be a little slow to catch on at times, but trashy? Girl, please.

Feel sorry for her is what I really should do, I decided. Obviously she’s never walked a field of freshly turned peanuts and picked bunches of them off the damp ground, shaking as much dirt off as she could before putting them in a paper sack. I bet she’s never helped pick them off the vine and rinsed them in the sink or outdoors with the water hose, then put them in a big pot and watched as they bobbed around in the boiling water and salt for what seemed like forever before they were dipped out steaming hot ready to be cracked open and eaten like candy. I bet she’s never stopped at a roadside stand and waited while they took a big, ole’ dipper and scooped up a double brown paper sack full from a pot over an open fire, then eaten them in the car until her lips and fingers were puckered from all the salt.

She’s been left out, that’s all. Probably from somewhere up north where they don’t understand the beauty and delicacy of good boiled peanuts. It’s a shame, really. But then I heard it.

“Have a safe trip home to South Carolina!” I heard a woman who obviously knew her say as she walked away. South Carolina? We Don’t Eat Boiled Peanuts Where I Come From was from South Carolina? Does she not realize where she lives? The boiled peanut is recognized as the state food, for goodness sake. The least she could do is be respectful. Grits is the state food of Georgia, and you will never hear me talking bad about them, even if I didn’t love them.

Maybe I should tell her that obviously a good many people where she comes from do eat boiled peanuts. That is, in fact, what they do. So don’t go around making broad statements about snack food you know nothing about. Because you’re getting personal. And I won’t stand for that. No, ma’m. Not my peanuts.

There I go again. Thank goodness I just thought it, didn’t say it. To go off on someone over a boiled peanut, well, that might be a little… trashy.

And me, trashy? Girl, please.

Email lifestyles columnist Mandy Flynn at [email protected].