July 23, 2014 Article

The Old Coot explains the law of “leaving half.”

By Merlin Lessler

It was the law! Back in the 1950’s. In my house, anyway. We called it the “Law of one-half.” You went to the fridge (which wasn’t called that back then; icebox maybe, but never fridge; it was simply, the refrigerator!). Anyhow, using correct modern lingo, when you went to the fridge to get some milk, or on the rare occasion when a quart bottle (the week’s supply) of soft drink (now called soda) still resided there, you had to limit your consumption. The most you could take was half. “Leave some for the next person!” The law applied to all consumables: potato chips, cookies, everything! If the Charles Chips can or the Wise chip bag had six chips left; you could only take three, just in case someone came along with a strong lust for a greasy potato chip, at least they would find something, even if it was only a small something, to sate their desire. Sometimes it got pretty complicated. “What if the bag contained a single chip and a few crumbs? Do I break it in half, or eat it all and destroy the evidence?” Usually we followed the rule, left half a chip and some of the crumbs.

It was a bad rule! We ended up with a “fridge” loaded with nearly empty containers and a cupboard full of cereal boxes, potato chip bags and cracker tins containing nothing but crumbs. Mom was the official executioner; she threw out the tired packages when no one was looking. It was her “leave half” rule; she didn’t want any witnesses when she broke it. 

The rule didn’t apply to Kool-Aid. A different principal came into play there. When the jug got below half we added water to replace the amount we drank. The Kool-Aid got weaker and weaker, but as long as it had some color and a hint of flavor, we kept it going. We had too. We were only allowed two batches a week, unless a bad stretch of hot muggy weather came to town and running through the sprinkler in the backyard wasn’t enough to cool us off.

I recently found that the “leave-one-half rule” doesn’t apply to college students sharing quarters. Just the opposite. I stumbled on it when I visited my son’s apartment at SUNY Plattsburgh, an apartment he shared with four other students. Their rule was: “whatever you put in the fridge or the cupboard is fair game.” Eat or drink it now, or forever hold your peace! A secondary rule was also in play; if you left a small amount in a beverage container, you didn’t have to put it in the garbage. The “fridge” ended up crowded with juice, milk, soda and other bottles with a sixteenth of an inch of liquid in the bottom. Now he’s back home and I can’t figure out which rules apply. Until I do, I’m hiding my emergency Snicker’s bar. I can’t risk finding it half gone, or all gone, in the middle of the night when I’m hit with a Snicker’s attack. (The leave half-rule doesn’t apply to Snickers)