1000 Grains of Rice

It was early afternoon when Catherine sauntered into the kitchen where I sat at the table with my book and a cup of tea. She was wearing one of dad's over-sized t-shirts and her hair was pulled back into a curly pony tail. Her bright green earrings hung just above her rosy cheeks and contrasted nicely against her chocolate complexion. "Hey Pooks," I said as I placed my arm around her waist and drew her to me, placing a kiss upon her still-warm cheek. "Manda, do you know what 'snickersnee' means?" she asked as she turned to face me. "I have no clue," I replied. "It means, 'a sword resembling a knife'" she said as she paused to gauge my reaction. "That's cool Catherine!" I said as a grin broke out across her face. She ran out of the kitchen and I returned to my book. A little while later Sophia pranced into the kitchen. She wore shorts and a t-shirt and her hair was pulled back into a neatly assembled high-pony tail. She used my neck for leverage as she swung herself around to face me, but not before giving me a big kiss on the lips. "Hi Manda," she said amiably. "Hey Moothie," I said. "What are you up to?" "Well" she began, "do you know how to spell fut-ark?" she asked as she sounded out the words. "Um, I've never heard of that word before" I said. "Have you tried looking in the dictionary?" Sophia stared at me before saying, "I can't look it up if I don't know how to spell it." "Duh," I said only then realizing the idiocy of my statement. "Ask mom," was my default response.
This continued for some time--Catherine and Sophia would intermittently come into the kitchen to ask me how to spell words such as, "puckish" meaning: mischievous; "lyophilize" meaning: to freeze or to dry; "meshuga" meaning: crazy etc. etc. etc. They kept this up for well over an hour. "What are Sophia and Catherine doing?" I asked my mom as I entered the dining room and plopped down in a chair next to where mom was folding clothes. "They're taking an online spelling bee" she said. "Why?" I asked. "Well there's a website sponsored by a world hunger organization that pledges to donate 20 grains of rice to a food bank for starving individuals for every word that participants in the spelling bee spell correctly." "How long have they been on the computer spelling words?" I asked. My mom looked at me and grinned, "Well over an hour and a half" she said. "When they found out that they could feed people by spelling words correctly, they decided to spell words until they could donate 1000 grains of rice a day." "Why 1000 grains of rice?" I asked. "Well," my mom began, "they figured that they could feed about 2 kids per day. I also told them that this would be a good amount because prior to that they were trying to feed the whole world." I laughed to myself as I thought about my little sisters sitting in front of the computer screen for hours in an effort to help feed hungry people around the world. A little while later Sophia and Catherine emerged from Andrew's room where they were using the computer at his desk. "How did we do?" mom asked. "We got 1020 grains of rice today" Sophia said as she and Catherine took seats around the dining room table. "How many people does that feed again mom?" Catherine inquired as she placed her chin in her tiny palm. "Um, about two or three kids" mom replied. "Moothie," Catherine said looking at Sophia. "Let's do it again tomorrow!"