Happy Birthday, Here's A Toothbrush

My mother was almost fanatical about recognizing birthdays, anniversaries and holidays; even the most obscure ones deserved a card. On some occasions I was almost offended when I was surprised the post office or bank was closed...because my mother had failed to notify me of an approaching holiday by wishing me a good one.

Flag Day, Arbor Day, even that kind of thing. She might not always have had a card for it but we heard from her -- sometimes it was just a postcard. Her favorite line went something like this, depending on the occasion: "It's [name the holiday] and I'd like to tell you how I feel...I feel fine, thanks."

Since my mom isn't around anymore to celebrate birthdays and holidays with little cards and all that kind of stuff, and everyone is going through a few years of getting used to it, I've been thinking it's important for all of us to honor that. I've been thinking it's important to at least recognize a few birthdays: Her sister's, maybe? Her closest cousin? Her best friends?

Well, I doubt I'm the first to inform you but...there's a long stretch between thinking and doing. Thankfully, my brother inherited the card-generating-gene and he appears to be filling the void, quite nicely in fact.

Because of that STUPID Facebook however, I realized it was my aunt's birthday and since I know she likes assorted chocolates and I had figured she might want to try some of NH's best, I purchased a box of chocolates for her. (Well Identified: Soft Centers).

The intent was to mail them, she lives in California.

I think they were in the car for at least a few days, but in NH, it was well below 40 and they weren't sitting in the sun, so I wasn't too concerned. I was already about a week late, so what did it matter?

I ended up cleaning out my car though because I had to give someone a ride. I moved the chocolates from the car to the mud room and I put them on top of the dog crate. They were only there for just a couple more days (she wouldn't have cared, she likes dogs).

At some point, I must have thought it wasn't right to leave them on the dog crate though because I know I moved them. In the following weeks, I saw them on the window bench in the dining room, on the dining room table, on the kitchen counter, on the kitchen island, on the sideboard in the dining room (just kidding, we don't have a sideboard), and on the coffee table in the living room.

Finally, they wound up on the kitchen island again.

The Y Chromosome and I came in from having dinner at La Caretta last night and I asked him if we really should test the candy before I mailed it.

Keep in mind, I patronized THREE (3) girl scouts this year. I always figure that considering I don't have kids of my own, I should be the winner of bulk purchases for each girl, so we have plenty of sweet chocolate treats in our house: Somoas, Thin Mints (they'll be sued for that one some day), Tagalongs, you name it. (In my defense, at least some of those boxes make their way to the Food Pantry and I figure I should get double, if not triple points for that.)

It took about a nanosecond. He paused before he replied, the gold elastic band went flying off and an entire box of chocolates lay open before us.

I am so glad I did not send these to my aunt.

Hello? Pink cream? Check this out. It reminded me of when we
were little, we'd try to put them back together and hope one of our brothers popped the whole thing in his mouth.

You can't swallow the stuff, it just coats the inside of your mouth and tastes like a recipe of 1 tablespoon paste; 6 of saccharine.

And there was gel too.

It's so shiny it was hard to photograph.

Who eats this stuff?

And am I an idiot? What did I think "soft centers" meant? I am sure my aunt would have thought, "How old does she think I am?" because this stuff is clearly designed for people without teeth.

Of course, if you do like this kind of thing, having no teeth is most likely not a reliable indicator of age, but in fact, an indicator that you might have eaten some of it.

(This one to the left, it's green.)

We broke each one open out of curiosity and then we ate some Somoas.