Two camps -- crusts and no crusts

            I'm hosting a bridal shower for a friend's son this weekend, and I was talking over the menu with my mom. She's an entertaining expert and gave the green light to fruit and vegetable trays and my punch recipe.

            Then we got to the subject I was trying to avoid – the sandwich tray.

            In my experience, the "let's-give-a-shower" world is divided into two parts – those who cut the crusts off the sandwiches and those who do not.

            My mom is in the first camp – she wouldn't dream of having a social gathering without a tray of crust-less, triangular-shaped sandwiches.

            I danced around the issue but she's a cagey inquisitor.

            "It's easy to make sandwiches yourself," my mom said. "You know how to make chicken salad, right?"

            "Of course, Mom," I replied, thinking I'd stop by the grocery store and pick up two pre-made containers from the deli.

            "You're not thinking of getting that chicken salad from the deli are you," my mother said.

            Busted.

            "The only good chicken salad is the kind you make yourself," she continued. "You do have a food processor, don't you?"

            It's common knowledge in the family that I don't have a food processor. In fact, I am the only female in the entire Hebert family – cousins included – that does not own a food processor.

            "I can just use the hand mixer," I told her.

            "That won't work," my mother said. "You'll have to make that chicken salad the old-fashioned way – chop everything up nice and fine. Now back to that bread. You do have an electric knife to cut off the crusts, don't you?"

            I decided to be brave. After all, I've gone through natural childbirth three times. I've driven on the 610 Loop during rush-hour traffic. I've worn a bathing suit in public. I decided to come clean.

            "Mom, I'm not going to cut the crusts off the bread," I said.

            There was silence on the other end of the phone.

            "I don't think I heard you," she said. "I thought you said you weren't going to cut the crusts off the bread. Everybody knows that when you go to a shower, the sandwiches are crust-less. Leaving them on is strictly a no-no."

            I took another deep breath.

            "Well, I'm not going to waste a perfectly good part of a sandwich just so it looks good," I said.

            And there it was, the diving line in the chicken salad.

            There are those who do not cut the crusts off the bread. The only silver we own is in our mouths and serving food from the counter is perfectly fine. We wear faded shorts, color our hair with the assistance of Lady Clairol and believe 10-year-old T-shirts aren't old – they're vintage.

            And then there's the ones in my mother's camp. They polish the silver before family functions, put out pink and green dessert mints for every social gathering and wouldn't dream of putting crust-less sandwiches on a serving tray that wasn't first lined with white paper doilies.

            "You can do whatever you want," my mom said. "Just know that when your guests see those crusts on the sandwiches, they'll know you were either ill-informed about the correct way to put on a shower or you were too busy to do things the right way."

            A daughter knows when she's lost the argument.

            "Okay, I'll cut the crusts off," I said, sighing. "You win."

            Even we hippies know when to throw in the towel. In this case, as my mother informed me, that towel had better be a white linen one with a monogram on the front.

        This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.