The Case of the Mysterious White Powder

A small white packet containing a mysterious white powder has appeared in our kitchen. You can see it in the picture there, behind the roll of paper towels.

The packet is an envelope, kind of like the ones you get your cash back in when you go through the bank drive-thru.

For all I know, it's also similar to the packet in which people deliver crystal meth. What about cocaine? Do they deliver it in envelopes or is it so commercialized now that itcomes in a tube like Pixie Sticks?

We have a lot of people through our house. Why, jut in the past 5 days we've had two women who help us with the kids, a plumber (twice), the fellow refinishing part of our basement offices, three missionaries, two gents who helped set up a rented inflatable water slide, three folks who help us keep the place clean, an appliance repair man, a travelling saleman hawking "Tuf Job" cleaner, and a dance instructor. Okay, I made up some of those. You have to guess which ones. The point is, we have a lot of people who come through our house, and any of them could have left it there.

Perhaps it is a plant and some kind of theatrical raid will go down late one night. Perhaps a dirty cop played by Willem Defoe will hold the envelope up in a gloved hand, waving it under my nose. "And what do we have here?" he'll ask.

One of the other dirty cops will grab my arms and hold them behind my back. "I've never seen that before in my life," I'll say.

"We'll see about that down at headquarters," Willem will say. "Yes, Mr. Ruh-va-ray, we'll see about that."

The envelope is a little dirty. I splattered chocolate Silk all over the place in a hilarious hand mixer incident. That's another hilarious (not hilarious) item for some future post. You can see little chocolate droplets on the paper towels and back by the outlet. I discovered the envelope while cleaning up after that mishap. There is a lot of powder in there, like 1/3 of a cup.

Perhaps I should taste it. It is in the kitchen, so chances are it's food. But what if it's some kind of drug? Does acid come in a convenient powder form? I'd take some and smear it on my gums, only to lapse into some kind of permanent hallucinogenic fit, leaving my wife and 5 children behind to feed me malt-o-meal while I rant about "The butterflies, my God, the butterflies."

I guess I'll start asking around tomorrow. Perhaps one of the 40 people parading through my home will have some answers for me. Until then, if you have any tips, please leave them in the comment section.