Kids

One year for Christmas my wife Cindy and I were given a box of Brach’s chocolates as a gift. It was kept under the tree with the rest of the presents that we had received. We invited friends over for an evening of snacks and games. Cindy had prepared one tray of assorted cookies and one of crackers and cheese balls to serve. While she was getting showered and dressed, I put the trays out.

I had a brilliant idea. I thought it would enhance the appearance of the cookie tray if I would interspace some of the candy among the cookies. I thought it would class up the trays. I took the box of Brach’s out from under the tree and lifted a piece of the chocolate in its paper cup to put it on the tray.

As I picked up the chocolate, I thought I hadn’t eaten a piece of candy yet, so I decided to try one. I took it out of the paper cup and was putting it to my mouth. For some reason, it didn’t feel quite right. The bottom wasn’t smooth and even as it should have been.

I turned the candy morsel over. The bottom had been scraped off revealing the cream filling that had been hidden within. Which of my three children had done it, we never found out, but that was only the beginning. Each and every piece of chocolate had their bottoms scraped off and then the candy had been put back in paper cup and returned to the box.

I was so glad that I had been hungry enough to try to eat a piece or I would have served them to our guests. It would have been so embarrassing.

Our friends had three children just as we did. They would have understood, I am sure, but it didn’t make the whole incident less amusing.

Speaking of chocolate and kids, I will share a story about my father-in-law, Bud. It was Easter morning. Bud had gotten up early and broken the ears off his siblings’ bunnies and eaten them.

Thinking he was smart, he decided to hide his rabbit to keep it safe while the family was at church. He decided to put his bunny on the window sill behind the window shades and they went to church. It was the wrong place. When they got home three hours later, Bud went to retrieve his rabbit and found a melted brown pool of chocolate on the window sill and the floor with a bunny trail leading down the wall. He hadn’t thought of the sun shining in the window while they were gone.

None of his family would share their intact rabbits (minus the ears) with Bud.