The Honeyguide Bird and the Badger

In case you don't know, my preferred method for sugar intake is mixed with flour, butter, salt, eggs, usually chocolate, and then some amount of baking. Frosting is also usually involved.

I'm not much of a candy eater. Certainly not milk chocolate. I think there was a time when I preferred milk chocolate to dark. I think I recall being pissed off when I got a Special Dark in my Halloween bag. But somewhere along the lines, that changed. And milk chocolate became too intense for me. But even back in the days where I enjoyed it, candy just wasn't my thing. And chewy, sour, fruity candy wasn't even close to being on my favorite treat list.

So come Halloween, I would usually dump out my pillowcase full of candy, organize it into groups: candy bars, gum, fruity candy, candy with little pieces, suckers, etc., then further break it down by name, count it all up and write it down to compare to previous years, and then retreat to my room to eat a few choice pieces. Usually the Almond Joys and Mounds first. Then a Twix. Maybe some peanut M&M's. But by the next day I was pretty much over it.

My mother's great idea for sparing our teeth from weeks of eating sugar was to demand that all candy be consumed within 24 hours, and whatever wasn't would be confiscated. And despite the fact that I neither relished my candy nor intended to eat much of it past the first day, I am, by nature, a saver. Mostly out of panic of not having something later when I really want it. So I would find secret places to hide away most of my candy so that it couldn't be taken away. In shoes. In coat pockets. In jewelry boxes and Barbie car trunks.

And then I would forget all about it. Ya, I might run across a small stash now and then. I can't remember if I would eat any of it. I just know that keeping the candy was very satisfying to me. Eating it? Meh. Christmas was the same story. Easter? You guessed it. One time I got a giant 1 lb Hershey's Kiss from a friend for Valentine's Day. After a small nibble, it went on a shelf next to my knickknacks until it eventually went stale and got thrown away. Or so I thought... But more on that later.

My sister, who bunked downstairs from me, was cut out of quite a different cloth. Her love affair with candy was not the patient, bashful one mine was. It was passionate, voracious, and all-consuming. She usually DID eat all her candy within 24 hours. Halloween was her fondest dream, as far as I knew. And any opportunity to spend money was always, always spent on candy.

So flash forward to years later. About 25 years later. My sister, brother, mom, and our spouses were sitting around one night playing games and laughing over old times when my sister confessed to me that she would secretly sneak up to my room following each holiday and hunt around for candy. She knew of all my secret hide-outs (even my mom never bothered to look in my snow boots, but Jennie did). She scoured every corner. She unearthed all my stashes. And ATE THEM. Ate every piece. Remember that giant Hershey's Kiss on my shelf I thought had been thrown away? Eaten. Slowly. Once tiny slice at a time over a period of weeks. Carefully, so that I would never notice.

Well, I didn't notice. Not with the Kiss. Not with the Easter candy. Not with my Christmas stocking. And certainly not with my many stashes of Halloween candy. I guess I pretty much functioned as The Candy Store Upstairs. I just never cared about candy enough to notice. (You're welcome, Jennie). I think, really, we had a symbiotic relationship. Like those fish that follow sharks around and eat the slime off their gills. Or those birds who live on Rhinos' backs and eat all their fleas. We worked well together, even if I didn't know it at the time.

So what now? What am I going to do with my sister living a thousand miles away and all this extra candy around the house?

I think today I found the answer hiding behind the couch....




Perfect. At least until the next dentist visit.