The Strawberries

The MIL moved in with us on April first (ha-ha, what fools we were THAT day!) of 1997, just one month before Younger Son was born. The stress of moving was ~very~ hard on her, and she came down with a horrible case of shingles.
She was devastated. She had been SO looking forward to helping out with the new baby, but now couldn't even come near him. :-( Fortunately, the SIL (sister-in-law) came to take care of the MIL, and all was okay.

A week or two after Younger Son was born, my mom was here to help me out, and the MIL was feeling better, but still afraid to come near. So she and SIL went out for the day and spent some time at a farmer's market.

They brought back two flats of strawberries.
What is that? About 24 quarts?
It was a butt-load of freakin' strawberries.

"Look what we found for you!" they cheerfully announced.
Awesome! I love strawberries! So, I happily reached in and accepted two quarts...
But no.
They told me that ALL the strawberries were for me.

WHAAT?!?

"Oh, none of them are for me," stated the MIL. "I can't eat them. I'm allergic. Where do you want them?"

Well, of ~course~ I said, "Just leave them here on the table," because I was sleep deprived and figured it made sense to SOMEbody even if it didn't make sense to me so it MUST be okay.
Then I watched the two of them walk away to the MIL's section of the house and disappear.

My mom just looked at me like "What is this? Did you ask for these? What gives?"

So, here I was with 24 quarts of strawberries, no sleep, a baby, a toddler, and a lovely labor-related injury that prevented me from standing or sitting for any amount of time.

As it turned out, my poor mother ended up bent over the garbage disposal for nearly a whole day shucking strawberries and trying to find enough Tupperware to freeze them in.

It was sad.

To this day I never got a satisfactory answer to WHY in the world they bought all those strawberries.
For me.
(shaking my head)