Feb 12, 2012

Sharing Treats


My sweetie and I went to the Stake Valentine's Dance tonight. I told you all about that last year and it was pretty much the same this year except that on the serving table they had thrown piles of chocolate kisses. I was so excited to find some with almonds since they are my very favorite! That prompted an interesting discussion later at dinner. Is it OK for parents to hide treats from their kids and not share?

One day when my sweetie was a kid, he was hanging out in his mom's room and on a whim, he opened the tiny cupboard on the headboard of her bed. Imagine his surprise when he found an entire bag of Danish Wedding Cookies! Surely she wouldn't miss just one...

That was the beginning, and by late afternoon, the entire bag was gone.

It wasn't long before his mom discovered the powdered sugar on her pillowcase and the empty bag in the cupboard. As my sweetie tells it, "She hollered up a storm!" (He doesn't even like those cookies anymore because he was so traumatized by her reaction.) After all, shouldn't parents want to share their good fortune with their kids?

I never knew my mom to keep many treats at the house, but maybe that's just because I was never as curious (or maybe desperate!) as my sweetie. If we wanted chocolate and treats, we just headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house. But I do remember going through the China cupboard one day and finding a box with what looked like little square chocolates in it. I didn't figure Mom would notice if I took just one...

I put that tiny brown square in my mouth and tried working it with my jaws. It was hard as a rock and after about 3 seconds, I spit it into the garbage. It was awful! I tipped the lid over and looked at the name again... "Ayds, appetite suppressant candy.". They were diet pills! No wonder they tasted so bad.

The other time I found Mom's candy stash I remember vividly. I had gone down in the basement to get something for her out of our food storage room. For some strange reason, I happened to look up toward the top of the freezer. I must have been at least ten or twelve, or I never would have been able to see, let alone reach, the giant Hershey's candy bar resting on top in all its delicious glory.

I was so excited! I grabbed it down and noticed that obviously I wasn't the first one to discover its existence. The wrapper had been torn and tiny bits of chocolate fluttered to the floor. I carefully pulled off just one square and popped it into my mouth. It's sweetness still lingered on my tongue and tainted my breath as I headed back up the stairs. So good!

It took me about half an hour to realize that if I didn't go for a second piece, I knew I was going to die right on the spot. I sneaked back downstairs without an errand and reached again for the candy bar. As my trembling fingers broke two pieces from the bar, a realization hit me.

What I had assumed was a sibling stealing chocolate before me had actually been tiny teeth marks. My partner in crime was definitely a mouse!

And I was about to be violently sick...

5 comments:

Natalie Ockey said...

We set a trap for that mouse baited with cheese, but there were no takers. After 3-4 days, mom baited the trap with a piece of the chocolate bar in question and mere minutes later SNAP! No more Mr. Hershey Mouse.

~R

Debby@Just Breathe said...

Those stories are so funny. My mom never had a stash that I know of. I still hide candy even though my children are grown up now!

Melanie said...

Nasty! Funny and disgusting story...all at the same time. :)

And yes...parents DO have a right to hide tastiness from their children.

Arkansas Patti said...

ha ha I was thinking mouse and was a bit worried it might have been poisoned bait. So glad it was just your sensibilities that were damaged.

Marci said...

Oh gross!

I have a brother who has a few different disabilities and he has quite the sweet tooth... so my mom had a secret candy stash that was really only supposed to be secret to him. It was just the top drawer in a chest of drawers in my parents bedroom, the trick was just that their bedroom had a lock (although the key was just hanging on a nail in the closet right next to their room --and I can say this just fine now because they don't live in that house anymore and their spot has changed now). That dresser held all sorts of secret treats--I could always count on there being red licorice, several different types of chocolate (mostly milk chocolate) and different holiday candies in there as well!

On the flip side, I have a secret candy stash sometimes from my husband... Our grocery store has a bulk section where I sometimes will pick up a little bag of chocolate covered raisins, or yogurt covered pretzels, and whatever I don't eat on the way home goes into my secret stash for the next day :)