Salt and Pepper Fruit Heads

Turns out that the peach-headed guitar-playing girl I'd been using for salt for a few years was actually the pepper shaker--it says so right on her skirt: P. But salt flowed freely from her two large holes.

Since I grind my pepper instead of shaking and had lost the cork that closed her companion, the pear-headed reed-playing salt girl, I must have decided a while back to switch their roles--or maybe had them switched all along.

A few weeks ago, the peach head broke right off in the hands of a child who wasn't even trying to dismember Ms. P. Obviously it wasn't the first time--there were traces of dried glue along her throat. I vaguely remember applying the stuff myself.

So I switched the salt and the cork back to the official salt girl, though not noticing till today the S on her skirt that so proclaimed her. She has three holes, each smaller than Ms. P's two, and two of them are blocked, probably with years of dried salt. So the flow she allows is much slower than Ms. P's.

Now I'm wondering if a painter at the Napco factor way back when made a mistake and reversed the functions of the fruit heads, or if the hole-driller made the pepper holes too big.

Anyway, if you have a small-holed pepper shaker around, try using it for salt if, like me, you prefer pinchs to gobs.