Mom takes care of Dad as good as she can while I’m away for work 50-60 hours a week, and after I go to bed.  She assembles his ham, Swiss, and onion sandwiches, leaving mayonnaise and mustard smeared on the kitchen island, smears waiting for me to come home and shudder and reach compulsively for the washcloth.  She brings him the newspaper.  She types his emails.  She brings him snacks and nuts, deluxe mixed nuts, i.e., with no peanuts.  Growing hungry on my homeward commute, I daydreamed about enjoying some of Dad’s deluxe mixed nuts with a cold Gossner boxed chocolate milk.  I found the nuts in a new plastic container logically labeled “Nuts.”  Mom commented on my having found the nuts, and wasn’t I proud of her for sorting through them to pick out all the nuts Dad doesn’t like, throwing them away so only his favorites remained, throwing away all the almonds?  All those delicious, crunchy, roasted, salted almonds.  My favorites.  Without speaking a word of pride or censure, or explanation, I returned the nut container, unopened, to the pantry.  I had never known anyone to purchase expensive deluxe mixed nuts (i.e., no peanuts) only to cull half its contents, the almonds, and discard them.  I decided to remind her how much I love roasted almonds.  “Oh rats,” she sighed guiltily, saying she guessed she should have put the almonds in a separate container.  Labeled “Roger’s almonds,” perhaps.