The Chocolate Deficit

Stop the presses!

Call nine-one-one!!

Get FEMA on the phone and tell them to alert the nation about the most distressing national disaster of all time!!!

Worse than a tornado! More terrifying than an earthquake! As devastating, if not more so, than the impending zombie apocalypse (scary fast-moving zombies, not the slow "I can't believe I can't outrun them" zombies). What's the dilemma, you ask? The chocolate in our kids' leftover Easter candy bags is disappearing!

Every Easter, when that stupid rabbit breaks-and-enters our house with his paganistic eggs and candy and fills our kids' baskets to the point of bursting, you'll find me lurking in a corner, rubbing my hands together and snickering like Snidely Whiplash. For the next few weeks, I lay in wait, plotting and planning and scheming endless ways to separate foil-wrapped chocolates from their respective rightful owners.

Our Daughter never used to eat any of her candy. Out of sight, out of mind seemed to be her modus operandi. That made her candy easier pickings than a pocket-protector nerd in a dodgeball game.

The Italian never liked peanut butter chocolate eggs, so those were the first to go from his bag, one by one, wrapper by empty wrapper hidden in the kitchen trash can. Like magic the peanut butter chocolate eggs vanished. The German never liked those crunchy chocolate bars with the puffed rice inside of them, so those were next on the hit list. Unwrap it, sweep it through the five-pound container of peanut butter in the pantry, and down they go.

When it comes to chocolate, to call my craving a sweet tooth does not do it justice. Too limiting. Mine is more like a sweet limb, or even an entire quadrant of the body. The fact our kids hardly ever ate their holiday candy simply meant more for me.

Christmas? Stocking candy!

Halloween? Random sampler stranger candy!!

Easter? Holy crap it's time to buy a girdle candy!!!

But this year, something strange happened. I'm suddenly living in some bizarro alternate universe in which children eat candy. And not just the good candy, either. Not only are the Snickers and Milky Ways and Hershey's solid milk chocolate bunnies wrapped to look like Star Wars stormtroopers being eaten, even the jelly beans and faux marshmallows in the shape of cartoon foods that typically spend their days collecting lint and wrapper shrapnel at the bottom of the bag are disappearing. What does that leave for me? Nothing.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Dude, you're forty-five years old and can go buy all the chocolate and candy you could ever want, eat it 'til you puke, and go back for more."

That's true. I can, and I probably have, but it isn't the same. The expression "easy as taking candy from a baby" came about not only because it satisfactorily expresses the ease of accomplishing a task, but also because taking candy from babies is fun and gratifying, especially when those babies are yours and they don't even realize they're missing out on a good thing when you take their candy.

Maybe, if I'm lucky, this trend will reverse itself before Halloween.



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

That Christmas Smell

"Can we go to Bath & Body Works tonight?"

Our Darling Daughter, despite maturing into perhaps the most responsible and sweet-natured teenager I've ever met, still hasn't grasped the idea that her Mother and I cannot simply drop everything at a moment's notice to run errands for her.

We ask her why it has to be tonight.

"I have a coupon that expires in two days, and I'm tired of smelling like Christmas."

The temptation to lecture about the benefits of pre-planning is strong. Until, of course, I remember who I am. Pre-planning is not my forte. My poor Mother was driven to the brink of madness by my repeated lack of preparedness, as My Lovely Wife is today.

What strikes us most from her statement, however, is the "I'm tired of smelling like Christmas" bit.

I've been married long enough -- and have been the father of a girl long enough -- to instinctively understand what she's talking about, but my brain still goes into that mental lock at the sound of words I never expected to be strung together. Although, it really is just one of many strange sentences our household has dished out.

Just this weekend, My Love Wife and I were watching television. Apparently, she did not immediately understand something someone said. I explained it to her and her comment back to me was: "That can't be what they said, but I guess it could be what they said."

One of my all-time favorites came a few years ago when we were all packed up in our van and heading out for the day. We traveled along a side street near our house and over a spot where the remains of a rabbit soiled the road. The German, in a sincerely melancholy voice, said: "Bye dead bunny."

It's difficult to imagine roadkill being the source of such a fond memory, yet it is.

In this instance, no longer wishing to smell like Christmas meant Our Daughter was still using the holiday-scented body washes and lotions her brothers bought her for Christmas. Four months later, sprigs of holly and hints of fig no longer made the cut. Maybe I did let the boys go a little overboard when I took them shopping for her presents.

"Dad! This one smells like a pine tree!" The Italian excitedly shoved an open bottle of lotion under my nose. The chemical aroma reminded me of the time I accidentally sniffed a bottle of ammonia thinking it was dish detergent.

Then up comes the German with a scented candle. "I think she would like this one," he said. "It smells like candy canes." In the end, I was proud of the restraint I mistakenly believed I had imposed by allowing them each to buy her only two of the more muted holiday scents.

I suppose we need to head back to the store to check out the latest seasonal flavors. Maybe the Easter aromas are on sale. I wonder if they have a body wash called "Dead Bunny?"



© 2011 Mark Feggeler