Free Candy
by Allison Kulbeda
I just keep standing, rooted to one spot, staring in horror at the sight in front of me. Inside my old dresser drawer, hidden behind the oversized tee-shirts of off color phrases and some thoroughly overwrote tank shirt, lay two gallon size Ziploc bags filled with M&Ms. I guess I shouldnt be so surprised, I knew that these bags had once existed. They were the leftovers from a wedding that I had attended two years ago, the wedding of my boyfriends sister.
Even though my boyfriend and I had dated for almost four years, the equivalent of 48 months, or 1,460 days, not that I was at that time counting, I was still not considered good enough of a friend to be in the wedding. Hell, I hadnt even been good enough to get into a family pew. I had to sit with a bunch of misfits in bad clothes. Again, not like Im bitter. So I make it through the whole hokey ceremony and then some, enjoying the bad food and cheap drinks and all I got out of it was a cheap plastic heart filled with candy. At least, thats what I thought.
Two days after the celebration, my dearest darling approaches me with two bags of left over candy. Two gallons of blue M&Ms, just ripe for the eating. Hmm, I can just hear my already overly stretched jeans, begging for mercy. But not to be ungrateful, I gladly accept the chocolate and stick the bags in my dresser drawer. And thats where they have stayed.
I visit the M&Ms every once in a while, making sure they werent melted and they were doing okay. Id open the drawer and think of them, but never actually touch them. Oh sure, I would turn them, like compost that never really leaves. But like the relatives of the same said variety, I was stuck with them. Once or twice I thought of giving them away, maybe bringing them to work, and leaving them on a table. But I then worried about the health issues. Besides, someone might find it a bit fishy that I had a giant bowl of light and dark blue M&Ms sitting at my desk. And I guess I could have thrown them out, but that would be wasteful. And who wants to waste? There are starving children in (fill in your favorite third world country) that would love to run uphill in the snow, with no shoes and a clubbed, webbed, and paralyzed gangrenous foot, backwards, while signing to his mute brother who only understands a rare African clicking language, for those M&Ms. But I digress.
So there they sat. For months, and months. And months. I got a job, lost that job, got another (repeat several times over). I crashed a car and bought a new one. I found a job and stuck with it and even moved in with the little darling whose sisters wedding started this whole thing. And there they sat.
Until today.
Today I opened a drawer and took them out. I ended up taking a good long look at all this stale chocolately goodness and realized that the problem probably wasnt that I was afraid of wasting food. It wasnt even that I was worried that throwing the candies away would be symbolic of throwing the relationship away. No, as I stood there on the eve of my engagement, the problem was that I was lazy. I reached over and did what I should have done a while ago.
I moved them to a less conspicuous drawer.
Even though my boyfriend and I had dated for almost four years, the equivalent of 48 months, or 1,460 days, not that I was at that time counting, I was still not considered good enough of a friend to be in the wedding. Hell, I hadnt even been good enough to get into a family pew. I had to sit with a bunch of misfits in bad clothes. Again, not like Im bitter. So I make it through the whole hokey ceremony and then some, enjoying the bad food and cheap drinks and all I got out of it was a cheap plastic heart filled with candy. At least, thats what I thought.
Two days after the celebration, my dearest darling approaches me with two bags of left over candy. Two gallons of blue M&Ms, just ripe for the eating. Hmm, I can just hear my already overly stretched jeans, begging for mercy. But not to be ungrateful, I gladly accept the chocolate and stick the bags in my dresser drawer. And thats where they have stayed.
I visit the M&Ms every once in a while, making sure they werent melted and they were doing okay. Id open the drawer and think of them, but never actually touch them. Oh sure, I would turn them, like compost that never really leaves. But like the relatives of the same said variety, I was stuck with them. Once or twice I thought of giving them away, maybe bringing them to work, and leaving them on a table. But I then worried about the health issues. Besides, someone might find it a bit fishy that I had a giant bowl of light and dark blue M&Ms sitting at my desk. And I guess I could have thrown them out, but that would be wasteful. And who wants to waste? There are starving children in (fill in your favorite third world country) that would love to run uphill in the snow, with no shoes and a clubbed, webbed, and paralyzed gangrenous foot, backwards, while signing to his mute brother who only understands a rare African clicking language, for those M&Ms. But I digress.
So there they sat. For months, and months. And months. I got a job, lost that job, got another (repeat several times over). I crashed a car and bought a new one. I found a job and stuck with it and even moved in with the little darling whose sisters wedding started this whole thing. And there they sat.
Until today.
Today I opened a drawer and took them out. I ended up taking a good long look at all this stale chocolately goodness and realized that the problem probably wasnt that I was afraid of wasting food. It wasnt even that I was worried that throwing the candies away would be symbolic of throwing the relationship away. No, as I stood there on the eve of my engagement, the problem was that I was lazy. I reached over and did what I should have done a while ago.
I moved them to a less conspicuous drawer.