GADSDEN, AL — My name is Connie Aldridge, I am 67 years old, and for nineteen consecutive years I have arrived at Calvary Baptist Fellowship Hall forty-five minutes before every potluck with a box of tent cards, a fine-tip marker, and a laminated seating diagram nobody asked me to make.

Every dish gets a label. Dish name. Allergen notes. A small star if it contains nuts. This is not optional. This is civilization.

And every single time — every single time — there is one dish on the far left end of the third table with no label, no serving utensil, and a foil cover that has clearly been disturbed in transit. No name. No ingredients. No indication of whether it is a side, a dessert, or a threat.

“I don’t need to know who brought it. I already know who brought it. I have always known who brought it. Her name is Patricia Weston and she has been doing this since the Clinton administration.”

Patricia Weston, 71, of the third pew left, has never once — not in nineteen years — filled out a tent card. When asked, she says she “forgot.” She did not forget. She made a choice.

“Connie does such a wonderful job with all of that,” Patricia told the fellowship committee in 2019, gesturing at my label station as though I were a valet and she had simply neglected to tip.

I have labeled 2,847 dishes. I have prevented four nut-allergy incidents. I have received zero tent cards from Patricia Weston.

The dish is always a noodle casserole. It is always fine. That is not the point.

At press time, Patricia Weston had arrived with a covered dish, set it on the far left end of the third table, and was complimenting Connie’s handwriting.