(this was written in 2002)

Surprise!

            It is now officially 14 days until my 30^th birthday.  A week ago today, I had a very un-almost-30-years-old experience.  I was at home.  It was 5:00pm and I was wondering where Ted was.  He’s usually home by 4:45pm so I was mildly concerned, knowing he often loses track of time.  At 5:10pm, I started to worry a bit.  Just as I was about to reach for the telephone to call Ted at work, it rang.  I picked it up.  It was Ted.  I asked, “Where are you?  Are you still at work?”  He answered, “I’m on the cellphone in the car in front of our house.”  He tried to continue speaking but I interrupted him, “You’re in front of the house calling me?  Quit being such a dork and get inside!”  He calmly said, “I called you because I need you to open the front door – I’m carrying something really heavy.”

I went to the front door to let him in.  He staggered under two fairly large boxes that were clearly heavy.  He thumped them onto the floor in our living room.  I saw the labels on the boxes – these boxes were from candywarehouse.com, my treasured online candy source!  I knew what was in those boxes!

Ted asked me if I wanted to wait until my birthday to open the boxes, but said I could open them right then because he had other birthday presents for me to open later.  I motioned for him to use his pocketknife to open the boxes.  I was too excited to speak.  The first box contained three smaller boxes of Nerds gum® (Nerds gum is a fifty-cent piece sized gumball with Nerds in the middle).  I was elated – I love Nerds gum®!  The second box was the heavier of the two, by far.  I figured Ted bought me the Dinasour Eggs I so wanted.  I didn’t anticipate that they wouldn’t come in individual packages.  Instead of the neat little packages that would make distributing this treat among friends easy, I had a box of bulk candy – 30 pounds of Dinasour Eggs.  Let that sink in a minute.  30 pounds of Dinasour Eggs!  I was so excited!

Keep in mind, I haven’t had Dinasour Eggs since I was about fourteen.  Dinasour Eggs used to be sour versions of Gobstoppers, changing colors and flavors the longer you sucked on them.  Dinasour Eggs are no longer the treat I remembered.  They’re basically sourer than usual candy coated Sweettarts (not like Runts – another Willy Wonka candy – as one of my students tried to tell me).  I was disappointed that my adolescent candy fantasy was no longer intact.  However, I was thrilled to receive such a wonderful candy bounty from my loving, understanding husband.  Ted understands my neurotic candy ways.  He figures, everyone needs a hobby.  Mine just happens to be candy.

What have I been doing with all 30 pounds of candy?  I’ve been bringing containers to school, sharing them with my students who are too young to remember the original Dinasour Eggs.  I’ve brought them to the main office in my department to share and will continue to bring them to my own classes (the ones I’m actually taking this semester), forcing my comrades to try these sour goodies.

Yes, it is ridiculous for anyone, let alone someone in their late twenties, to want so much candy.  It’s a neurotic thing with me.  I don’t eat candy all the time although I usually carry some form with me.  I’m more interested in having it around me and sharing it with others.  My grandmother always loved being around “good eaters”, force feeding them bacon and eggs.  I love giving candy to my friends and colleagues – I feel happy and secure when I know I have plenty (i.e. obscene amounts) of candy around me.  Thank goodness I brush my teeth at least five times per day…[1]

The Hunt:  Part II

September 5, 1999:  It is just before Ted and my wedding at an indoor park in downtown St. Paul.  As I nervously await the ceremony, our photographs are being continually taken.  My Grandma Blanche enters the park wearing the same light blue/teal dress she has worn to all three of my brothers’ weddings, starting back in 1984.  She is also wearing light blue nylons, light blue pumps and her blue-tinted eyeglasses.  And her forever dyed hair is freshly blue.  My gay ex-boyfriend/personal attendant Brad looks up from straightening my dress and happily sighs,  “Ah, Blanche.  What a lovely symphony of blues.”

December 25, 2000:  Ted, Grandma Blanche and I are driving around Sioux Falls on Christmas afternoon, stopping at every Cenex gas station we see.  After numerous phonecalls, I discovered that Cenex stations carry the Radberry mix of Now-n-Later candy (Now-n-Laters are tart, harder versions of Starburst fruit chews.  According to their ad campaign, they start out hard and fruity and end up soft and chewy).  I have been searching for months, desperately trying to find this particular kind of Now-n-Laters.  Ted is incredibly amused, constantly shaking his head and smiling as I stop the car, jump out, run into each station and run back out with 20 to 30 packs of the special Now-n-Laters.  He is just grateful to be out of the house on Christmas.  He loves my family, but even I’ll admit that 48 hours straight can be tiresome, especially if you weren’t born a chattering Loverude.  Grandma Blanche thinks the whole search is hysterical.  She keeps giggling, saying “Uffda” each time I return to the car with a box of candy.  Grandma Blanche likes to get out and about – she will happily ride anywhere in the car, especially with me, her longtime pride and joy.

November 17, 2001:  I am an absolute wreck.  Ted and I are staying at the Super 8 because all of the relatives are in town and my mother doesn’t have room for all of us at her new townhouse.  My oldest brother, Jeff, and his family are staying at Grandma’s apartment.  My mother had asked if Ted and I wanted to stay there and we said no, that we would be too uncomfortable.  It wouldn’t be the same without Grandma there.  We are in town for Grandma Blanche’s funeral.  As I frantically change into my black pantsuit, Ted pulls on his plaid blazer with the suede elbow pads.  We hustle into his Subaru Legacy wagon and speed to the church.

December 25, 2000:  We drive to all of the Cenex stations in Sioux Falls, then move on to any Walgreens that happens to be open.  Grandma Blanche loves it.  At the Walgreens, Grandma actually comes in with me.  She likes to walk around almost any store, just looking, almost never buying anything unless it is a gift for me.  Walgreens doesn’t carry my special flavor of Now-n-Laters, but I have already gotten 38 packs from all of the Cenex stations so I don’t mind.  Grandma giggles a lot, not just when we are shopping.  She has a flirtiness about her even at age 92.  She coos and lowers her eyes, basking in male attention.  She loves Ted and flirts with him whenever she gets the chance to talk to him.  Grandma’s flirting is special – she isn’t interested in you as a romantic object, but if she flirts with you, that means she really likes you.  Ted is lucky Grandma loves him because any man who married me was going to be a hard sell with her.

November 17, 2001:  We are at Grace Lutheran Church, the church where I was confirmed back in 1987.  The minister comes up to me upon our arrival at the church.  He asks me how I am doing and acts like I should know who he is.  I am disoriented, nearly crippled with grief so I don’t recognize him.  He pulls me over to a glass case mounted on the wall just outside of the sanctuary.  Lots of pictures I don’t recognize.  “Look, there’s your confirmation class.”  Oh.  Man, I was ugly in 1987 – all big hair and bad taste.  This is Pastor Ron, I got it now.  My memory of him flies in and out of my brain in seconds.  I am too consumed by my tears.  What am I going to do without my beloved Grandma?  Grandma, whom I talked to on the phone every Sunday since 1991.  Grandma, who thought I couldn’t do anything wrong.

March 11, 2002:  I’m sitting at my computer, frantically typing a 20-page paper that is due in four days.  The phone rings.  Ted is downstairs, watching TV and eating ice cream.  I know he’s not going to answer.  I pick up the phone.  I say, “Hello” and wait.  After a small pause I hear, “Rhon – da?”  I hear an elderly woman who says my name exactly as Grandma Blanche had every Sunday for ten years, even ending my name on a high note.  Tears fill my eyes.  I think I am going crazy and that Grandma Blanche is trying to contact me from beyond the grave.  I sort of whisper/gasp, “Yes??”  “This is Nana, er, Irene.”  Oh.  It is Ted’s grandmother, calling us from California.  I launch into false cheerfulness, hoping that I won’t burst into tears before I am able to hand the telephone over to Ted.  After handing him the phone, I return upstairs, shaking and crying.  Apparently, I am not done mourning the loss of my extremely special grandmother.

(this was written in 2000)

Willy Wonka:  My Friend, My Enemy

            I adore Willy Wonka candy.  You remember Willy Wonka, don’t you?  Not the character in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” but the actual candy sold in stores?  Gobstoppers, Dinasour Eggs, Nerds, Tart-n-Tinys, Runts, Wacky Wafers… I could go on forever describing his candy catalogue.  Except for Wonka’s two candybars, all of his candy is tart, sour.  Gobstoppers are jawbreakers (not the gross baseball-size polka-dot jawbreakers they sell in mall candy shops) that actually do change color and flavor the longer you suck on them.  They used to make quarter-size Gobstoppers but now they’re all the size of dimes or smaller.  I describe Gobstoppers specifically because they are my favorite of Wonka’s candy creations.  Since I try all new candy, when Willy Wonka came out with candybars, I had to try them.  The fascinating Xploder bar, which was simply chocolate full of Pop Rocks, was good fun.  I’d never eat them regularly, but the novelty was nice.  But Willy Wonka’s candybar that contains graham cracker bits was my downfall.

I honestly don’t remember the name of this candybar.  I remember it was absolutely delicious and I enjoyed every chocolatey, graham crackery bite.  I think I must have blocked the name of this candybar out of my memory because of the incident that may or may not have been caused by it.  Let me explain.

In February 2000, I first discovered Willy Wonka’s new candybars.  I was thrilled.  All of his other candy is so pleasing to my palate, I just knew his candybars would be sensational.  Unfortunately, the day after I ate his chocolate bar full of graham cracker bits, I developed horrible hives.  All over my body.  From the top of my head to the soles of my feet, from the inside of my ears to every crevice and cranny of my body, I was covered in hives.  Huge, pink, painful, itchy welts.  Everywhere.  My eyes were sealed mostly shut, I had the chills and I was dreadfully uncomfortable.  I had the hives for a total of ten days, resulting in three emergency room visits to get shots of adrenaline as the hives threatened to close off my windpipe.  On the third visit, they kept me overnight, drawing my blood, monitoring my heart rate and my breathing.

I hate the hospital, I hate needles, I hate not sleeping in my own bed, I hate having hives, I hate pain and discomfort, I hate hospital food, I hate I hate I hate!  Everything about those ten days was absolutely awful from missing a week’s worth of classes to not being able to sleep because of the extreme discomfort.  My doctors weren’t sure what caused my hives.  It could have been an allergy to an airborne spore or something or maybe even a food allergy.  I didn’t remember that I had eaten the Willy Wonka candybar until weeks after I had survived my bout with hives.  I was never tested for any allergies because, honestly, I’m too much of a coward.  The idea of having needles repeatedly jabbed into my back in hopes of detecting allergies just didn’t seem worth it to me.

Because the Willy Wonka candybar is the only new food I remember eating just before having the hives, I will not eat one again.  It doesn’t matter to me that it might not have even been the candybar that caused the hives.  I am stubborn and unwilling to go get tested by an allergist and I refuse to risk getting hives again by eating a candybar that I truly did enjoy.  I continue to eat his other candies and I’ve been begging my husband to relent and order some Dinasour Eggs for my birthday next month.  You can’t get Dinasour Eggs in stores anymore – you have to bulk order them online.  Dinasour Eggs are a sourer, egg-shaped version of Gobstoppers.  I know I’m not allergic to Dinasour Eggs and since I’m determined to never eat another Willy Wonka candybar, I don’t understand why I can’t have my Dinasour Eggs to make up for this loss!  I realize they’re $40 for a large box full of individually wrapped packages, but aren’t I worth it?

(this was written in 2001)

I am a candy connoisseur.  I try every new candy that comes out on the market, hoping to find exciting ways to occupy my palate.  Usually, I’m disappointed with new candy.  Candy makers often try to make the recently developed candies extremely sour or bury perfectly good “classic” candybars under a suffocating load of chocolate (see the “Big Kat”).  It is when I try these treats that I find myself longing for the candy of my childhood, when real cinnamon oil was used to make lollipops and real peppermint oil, not merely flavoring, was used to make candycanes.  Most modern candycanes suffer from a fakey, artificial peppermint essence, not the real deal at all.  Fortunately, Walgreens carries Joybrite candycanes during the holiday months, which happen to be the only canes I can find that use natural peppermint oil.

Two years ago, my husband Ted and I had just spent Christmas with his family who live in the sullen dullness of suburban Minnetonka.  A blanket of boredom covers most of Minnetonka, especially during the holidays. Only true candy aficionados pay attention to day-after-major-holiday candy sales.  Knowing that I enjoy eating candycanes every day of the year, I realized I needed to stock up.  As we were heading back to the salvation of St. Paul, I remembered that I wanted to buy the good candycanes before they were gone.  We headed to the Minnetonka Walgreens.

I told Ted to wait in the car as I would only be a moment.  He dropped me off in front of Walgreens and sat patiently in his quietly humming station wagon.  There was virtually no one in Walgreens on the evening of December 26, 1999.  As I walked through the glass doors into the fluorescent glare of the store lights, I noticed an employee.  This particular employee was a young, 20ish male with a long, spiky purple mohawk.  He was huddled behind the photo counter, clearly bored without the company of coworkers or customers.  He gave me a half smile and a wave, telling me to grab him if I needed any assistance.  I smiled absently and headed to the holiday aisle.

I grinned as I saw the huge “50% off all Christmas merchandise and candy” signs that peppered the shelves.  Now the hunt…  I had obtained a shopping cart at the front of the store, anticipating I might be buying a large amount of candycanes.  As I scanned the shelves, I was disappointed to find only twelve boxes of my beloved Joybrite mini-candycanes.  I forgot to mention that Ted and I only really like miniature candycanes.  I am not sure why we are so stubborn about the size of the canes, but that’s just what we like.

I gathered the twelve boxes, normally priced at $2.99 per box (84 canes per box), now a mere $1.49.  As I headed to the front of the store to purchase my sugary bounty, Mohawk Boy started to laugh as he saw all of the boxes in my cart.  Then, he suddenly grew solemn and said, “There are more boxes of the candycanes on the top shelf.  Do you want those, too?”  Being five feet tall, I don’t often look at the top shelves in stores or wherever, so I had missed more candycane goodness.  There were easily around 20 extra boxes of candycanes on the top shelf.  I looked at them longingly, knowing that if I bought them, I’d be spending close to $45 on candy.  Not that I haven’t done that before, but I hadn’t really prepared myself for spending so much.  Mohawk Boy noted my hesitation and said, “Do you want those other boxes?  If you buy them, the inventory for them won’t have to be redone every day as we continue to reduce the prices.”  He was trying to reduce his workload and he was getting my attention.  I raised an eyebrow as he continued, “I will make it worth your while if you clear out my stock.”  I wondered, “How worth my while?”  I agreed to negotiate.  He just smiled and started to climb the shelves, handing down boxes and boxes of my beloved candycanes.

By the time he had cleared the shelf, my shopping cart overflowed with bright red, white and green boxes.  As we approached the cash register, I giggled, knowing Ted would be wondering what was taking so long.  Little did he know I was getting the deal of the century.

When all was said and done, I got 31 boxes of candycanes for $24 – Mohawk Boy had made good on his promise.  He then asked if I needed assistance getting the boxes to my car.  I did need help, and he was bored so he generously pushed the full-to-bursting cart out the door to Ted’s car.

Ted grinned even though he looked shocked.  He wasn’t that shocked – he knows how much I love candy.  He got out of the car, helped unload the boxes of candycanes, thanked Mohawk Boy and we were off.  He kept grinning and shaking his head.  He started to say, “You realize we’ll probably never have to buy candycanes again…” He paused.  “What am I saying?  Who am I talking about?  Of course you’ll need to buy more candycanes next year.”  He laughed and drove us home to St. Paul.