Almost empty: a family tradition

There's a joke in my family among my parents and siblings that when it comes to food you can not finish anything.

Imagine a plate with pancakes on it.  The family eats the pancakes, but then as dinner is finishing, there is one pancake left on the plate.  Who gets it?  Well, it's not polite to take the last one, so everyone just leaves it and dinner is over.

What do you do with the one pancake?  Do you just eat it?  Do you throw it out, even though it is good food?  Do you save it?  Saving it would involve using a baggie or a Tupperware for just one item.  Is it worth it?

During that same meal, everyone has a drink of milk.  But, the tradition is, you must leave a tiny bit of milk in the jug.  You must leave too much milk in the jug just to throw out, so you have to save it.  An entirely empty jug, except for about 1/8 of a cup is stored back into the fridge.

Do you see how this is going?  The family tradition of leaving just the tiniest amount, but too much to throw out has managed to be passed onto my own children.

It's too much food left to throw the container away, but it seems so ridiculous to store an almost completely empty container.

Same with the syrup here.

Must leave a little in the jar.  Now the entire jar must be stored until the next time we eat pancakes.

I have learned over the years that the next time we eat these foods or drinks, I put the mostly empty container out first.  If I set that jug of syrup out AND a brand new jug of syrup, the family will open the new jug and use it, never touching the jug that is almost empty.

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just my family?

Just some food for thought.  :)

PS: Check out my son, Stonehelm the Wise's, latest blog entry.

An update on the almost empty situation in our house:

Last night we had pickles as a part of our dinner.  There was one lonely pickle slice the size of a nickle left floating in the jar.