mood: cranky? you bet. although i’m not by nature a complainer, or at least try not to be, my leg is killing me and is getting worse. i can’t stand up or walk for more than thirty seconds without shooting pains and whatnot.
so i’m gonna write about something that will make me smile and get my mind off of it. even though i’m sitting down and therefore not in much pain, i’m still thinking about it, and i need to not brood.
hence, necco wafers.
which are my favorite candy. as a lot of people close to me know, because i got lots of them for christmas in my stocking. packaged, not loose. from kirk, and from his mom. and from my boss, who gave me a tin necco wafer can with small packages of necco wafers inside.
but here’s the best part. the can had packages of individually wrapped necco wafer bundles, nine to a bundle. the bundles weren’t loose in the can, though. they were in a plastic bag, and then the whole shebang was shrink-wrapped. talk about extraneous packaging. anyway, when i opened the plastic bag and dumped the necco wafer bundles in my necco wafer can, it only filled it about one-third full. bummer.
but here’s the best part. kirk had given me the same nine-to-a-package individually wrapped necco wafer bundles, so they could go in the can. and so had his mom. given me necco wafers, not gone in the can. she wouldn’t fit. so now my necco can is full, except that i brought it to work and have had a constant sugar rush since, because i keep eating the damn things.
which no one can really understand. why i like them so much, that is. my boss thinks i’m nuts–she says they taste like superannuated chalky tums. well they do, and i’m coincidentally a big tums fan, if they’re flavored. and i also loved orange baby aspirin when i was a kid, back when people gave aspirin to kids, and they remind me of that a bit.
which brings me back to my leg pain, because each time i eat a necco, i pretend that it’s a magic leg pain pill. i think they are working. i certainly eat a lot of them, and i have lots of leg pain. unintended consequences and such.
i’ll eat chocolate, but it doesn’t give me the rush that necco wafers do. and other than necco wafers, i hate hard candy. peppermints and comparable stuff i could live the rest of my life without. except for the very occasional root beer barrel.
and chewy candy i can do without as well, especially things that stick to your teeth. caramels, tootsie rolls and the like are the lobster of the candy world–too much work for too little reward. except for black jellybeans, and red vines or licorice sticks or twizzlers or whatever you choose to call them. my boss brings me fresh twizzlers from hershey park each year when her family goes, and if you’ve never had a fresh twizzler you haven’t lived. it’s night and day from the twizzlers that have been warehoused and store-shelved for innumerable centuries.
but they all pale in the devastatingly bright but humble light of the necco.
which, if you didn’t know, stands for (n)ew (e)ngland (c)onfectionary (co)mpany.
and don’t talk to me about the black sheep bastard cousins of the necco wafer–the conversation hearts you buy on valentine’s day. not the same thing. you can barely eat those damn hearts without breaking a tooth. and spare me the stupid sayings. i want my chalky candy unadorned, please.
get real.