Aren't You Glad We Asked? Poem by Donal Mahoney

Melba comes home from the grocery store and tells Fred what happened.

She was walking away from the dairy case with a quart of milk when a young man stopped her. He might have been 20.

He was there with a pregnant girl and he was holding a package of margarine.

He said to Melba, "Ma'm, is this butter? "

Melba told him it was margarine.

The pregnant girl said, "M'am, what's the difference between margarine and butter? "

Melba said, 'Margarine has a vegetable base and butter comes from cows."

The young man asked Melba to show them butter, and she pointed out the butter in the dairy case.

The pregnant girl said, "What's the difference between salted and unsalted"?

Melba said, 'Salt content."

The young man said to the girl, 'Aren't you glad we asked? "