“No More Petits Fours”

Ever since I was a child, I enjoyed the company of older people more than I enjoyed the company of children my age.  I liked learning from them and listening to their stories.  One would never guess listening now to our radio show, that I like stories, he, he.  It is interesting to me however, that the stories I heard or I should, with a more expanded view.

As a young man, I had a beautiful older friend, Jeanette, who was sweet, kind, full of wisdom and great stories.  Since this was many years ago, I can’t say I remember all of the stories she would tell me, but I remember what to me, now, is the most important story of them all.  And it wasn’t a story she told me, but one we created while experiencing a brief moment that lives on in my memory till this day.

Jeanette had thrown a party at her beautiful home and invited all her older lady friends.  It wasn’t a party, party, it was a tea party, an afternoon tea party.  Not sure how to describe it since it really wasn’t my thing, and I was there only for a short period, just to say hello.  Let me see, it was a “social” thing, like a “High Society” thing.  All the ladies were all dressed up in beautiful dresses and hats and they were being very proper and polite to each other.  I think you get the picture.

Jeanette asked to me come to meet some of her lady friends.  If I remember correctly, she was working on an event and having me as the guest singer and wanted me to meet some of the event’s planning committee. I didn’t feel right, nor did I want to be there for very long, so I didn’t arrive until late in the party, and didn’t stay for very long.  But the time that I stayed was enough to create a moment that would last me a lifetime.  Better yet, it was to be a life lesson moment.

At one point, one of Jeanette’s ultra sophisticated friends, to say it politely, came over to her and said something like, “Oh Jeanette, your petits fours are just lovely, where did you buy them?”  To which Jeanette responded uncomfortably, “Oh, I don’t know, so many of the ladies brought things that I’m not sure where those came from.”  This story harkens back to the time when I was so unconscious of so much of what was going on around me, and as you will see, quite dense as well and slow in my reactions.

I thought to myself, that if her “sophisticated” friend was raving about the petits fours, I not only had to try them, so I knew how good petits fours tasted, according to the “expert,” but here was also my opportunity to learn what they were.  I figured, if this is something that “high society” people knew about, I needed to know about them too.

While Jeanette’s friend was sitting with us, I turned to Jeanette and asked her “what are petits fours?”  An even more uncomfortable Jeanette responded with a “oh you know those little things at the table over there.”  Her uncomfortableness and her subtle hints passed over my head.

Eager to learn and experience, I told reminded her that there were so many trays of food on the buffet table in the kitchen that I wasn’t sure which she was talking about.  “Over there Jeanette pointed,” said as she pointed both with her finger and her intention to get me to either stop asking or to go in the kitchen and find them myself.

“Over there, where, are they on that table or that one?”  I continued to query.

“Just go in the kitchen and ask one of the ladies in there to show you them,” she finally said, in a tone that was obviously annoyed, even to me.

I got up and went into the kitchen and left Jeanette with her friend.  At this moment, after all that, I can’t even remember if I ate a petit four or not, but I remember that soon after I had an interesting conversation with Jeanette.  When Jeanette finally, broke away from her friend and the uncomfortableness of the moment, she came over to me.  The first words out of her mouth were, “I can’t believe you kept asking me what petits fours were, I don’t know what they are, and I didn’t want her to know I didn’t know what they were either.”

Jeanette went on to tell me how she has always felt looked down upon by this woman and how this woman either had more money and more experiences of the world, or acted like it, and that she always felt inferior.  I started to understand that some of the “party” was show, not only for this woman but possibly many of the ladies there.  In retrospect, they were putting on a show for each other as to which one of them had the most “class,” or “sophistication,” the best dress, the most money, the…

Come to think of it, I might have been that for Jeanette.  Her friends might have had this and that more than Jeanette, but she had the attention of a young man whom she got to show off at her party.  Only, her young man ended up embarrassing her by exposing her ignorance of petits fours.

As I have reflected on this story recently, I have thought about a couple things in particular.  The first is, how sad for Jeanette to have to uncomfortable in her own home, or in her own life for any reason, especially one such as not knowing what a petit four is.  I also have been thinking how sad it is for Jeanette to have friends with whom she has a rivalry with, or one who makes her feel uncomfortable or unworthy.

Finally, and most importantly, how sad, in my opinion for Jeanette to not be comfortable enough with herself, have enough self-confidence, self-worth and self-esteem to not even have to think twice about saying, “I have never heard that expression, what is a petit four?”

Jeanette was at that point over 80 years old.  If at 80 something she was this way, she had been this way all over her life, to be sure.

I enjoyed spending time with Jeanette because she had so much to offer, her stories, her wisdom, her charm, her sensibility, her love, and so much more.  And here she was “teaching” me that she could not see any of that in herself, for herself.  In one moment, that I now remember more than all the moments we spent together I learned a lesson that she had not even intended to teach me that superseded all the lessons she actually intentional tried to teach.

Jeanette is long gone by now, but if she were alive today, I would have wished for her remaining days in her life, no more petits fours.

For those who don’t know, I finally learned that petits fours are little deserts that look like mini cakes and are called petits fours, which literally translates into, “little ovens,” referring to their size in comparison to normal size cakes, as if they had been baked in little ovens.

Though, if we choose to, I hope we all enjoy eating as many petits fours to our hearts contents, but when a Jeanette petit four type situation comes up, I hope we all feel comfortable enough in ourselves, our-worth, our self-esteem, to not feel like Jeanette did at that moment, and if we care to, be able to say, “I have not heard of that word/expression before, what does that mean?”

No more petits fours!