Archives for January, 2009

You Call That Candy?

Sunday, January 18th, 2009


For Christmas, I received a gift basket from my boss. The basket contained all sorts of goodies ranging from cookies to candies. Amongst the goodies was a box of “Latte Candy”. I should have known by the title that this would not be pleasant.

First and foremost, I am not a coffee drinker. Nor do I drink cappacino, lattes or anything remotely related to coffee. I just never developed a taste for it, although I really tried to, in my younger days. No matter how much cream and sugar I tried to dump into it, it still tasted awfully bitter to me. Then when I tried those flavored coffees, the only flavor that I tasted was the bitterness of the coffee itself.

So, why did I think that this “Latte Candy” would be any different? Maybe because it was advertised as “candy”, and I do have a sweet tooth. The reviews for the candy were very positive….everyone who reviewed it thought it was delicious! I’m sure the company makes a quality product…it just wasn’t to my liking. The last thing that I said to D.H. just before I popped the little bugger into my mouth was, “I dunno….I never liked coffee-tasting anything in the past…..”.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I definitely did NOT like this candy. I probably had it in my mouth for 2 seconds, if not just 1 second. I still had the wrapper in my hand, so I quickly spit it into the wrapper. Holy crap, that was awful! The description of the product said that it was “deliciously sweet with a hint of vanilla”. Yeah, riiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhht. Further, there was some sort of liquid center in the candy. God only knows how horrible that taste would have been.

The candy tasted worse than any cup of coffee that I have ever tried. It was so much more intense and bitter. It was as if someone took the used coffee grounds and compacted them into a hard candy shape….adding no sugar or anything else to lessen the bitterness of the coffee.

I looked at the ingredient list and found that “coffee flavor” was at the bottom of the short list, indicating that there was less of that than anything else. Amazing! What’s worse, the serving size of these candies is 4. Why, I couldn’t even get through 2 seconds of 1 candy!

Since I don’t believe in throwing candy away, even if it’s perfectly awful candy, I’m looking for someone to take it off my hands. I’ll try to give it to the coffee-drinking people in my family and if that doesn’t work, I’ll bring it to work and try to pass it off to my unsuspecting co-workers. Maybe I’ll just anonymously put the candy on the table in the conference room….since I’m sure others received the same gift basket, they’ll never be able to link the unwanted candy back to me.

Coffee candy, anyone? It’s delicious! Really!

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Shared Laughter with Strangers

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

Has anyone else noticed that many of the people that you come across in public seem to be more crabby than usual these days? Everyone seems to be in a rush (me included) in their everyday lives. People have so many things to do and so little time to do it. We don’t often take the time to talk to people that we don’t know….we barely even acknowledge their existence unless they happen to get in our way and we nearly stumble into them.

The other night, DH (dear heart) and I were at the grocery store. It was a Friday night after a long and tedious work week. Others were at the grocery store, too, running up and down the aisles, throwing things into their carts, consulting shopping lists, etc.

D.H. was pushing the cart and I was consulting the list. We started to cross the aisle to get to the peanut butter aisle when my husband stopped short with the cart. Another woman was right in our path, on her way back to the cart that her significant other was pushing. When I looked up from my list, she was apologizing to my husband for being in the way….and doing so in a very pleasant and considerate manner.

Usually when people step out in front of your cart at the grocery store, they never acknowledge that they’ve stepped in your way. They often give you a glare that makes you wonder how YOU could thoughtlessly be pushing your cart into THEIR path. You know the type of glare that I mean.

Well, I decided to initiate pleasant contact with this woman, so I barked out, “Yeah! Watch where you’re going!”. It was my laughter after the comment that let the woman know that I was just playing. She laughed, too, as she headed to her cart on the other side of the aisle. She said something to me that I couldn’t quite hear, but it was obvious that she was playing right back. We both laughed and turned to go our separate ways.

I’ll probably never see this woman again. Shoot, I couldn’t even say what she looked like. Still, in the few moments that we interacted, I got the immediate feeling that we could have been friends, she and I. So long as we stayed out of each other’s way at the grocery store, that is.

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Posted in apology, grocery shopping, kindness | 1 Comment »

Desperate Measures

Monday, January 12th, 2009

I’ve been watching Desperate Housewives since it began several years ago, but I don’t think I laughed nearly as much until last night’s episode (Season 5, Episode 12, 1/11/09).

Desperate Housewives

Gabrielle is having difficulty managing her two children after Carlos leaves town on a business trip. The girls aren’t listening to a single thing that Gaby has to say and are mean enough to say that they only listen to Carlos because they love him more. (Poor Gaby!). She goes outside and is sniffling on her front porch when their new gardener asks what is wrong. ((This wasn’t what I found so funny, but I’m getting to it….))

The gardner tells her that she has to use her “mean voice” with them to get them to behave, and she admits that they aren’t afraid of her. He even gives her an example of how she should yell at them (he’s quite convincing with his deep baritone voice). She asks him if he has 15 minutes free.

The next scene shows him bent over the two girls, shouting at them to hurry up and pick up their toys “faster! faster!” The girls are obviously afraid of him and are crying to Gaby. She tells the girls that they wouldn’t listen to her so she had to call for Reggie…. They, of course, want to know who sent Reggie….and Gaby tells them that their father (whom they love so much) did. Then Reggie breaks in and tells them there’s no time for chatter and to get busy picking up their toys.

Maybe this was especially funny to me because “Reggie” barking orders in a loud voice reminded me of Terrible Terry Tate. He has a way of bending over his victims to shout at them about some sort of office protocol that they’ve ignored.

Terry Tate

Terry Tate is the office linebacker whose antics were originally part of a Super Bowl ad for Reebok. At work, we all wish that Terry Tate worked with us. We need someone to put the scofflaws in line…the people/person who eats other people’s food from the company fridge….the people/person who creates a paper jam in the community copier and leaves it and walks off….. etc., etc. etc.

The writers on Desperate Housewives are brilliant for coming up with this bit. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

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Posted in Carlos, Desperate Housewives, Gabrielle, Terry Tate | No Comments »