Chocolate Wars
I’m tired of being threatened by candy.
I mean, c’mon. I’ve always been appropriately enthusiastic towards sweets in general, donating several dozen hours of my lifespan to consumption of cookie varieties, and I always celebrate Halloween with Peanut M&Ms and Mounds Bars, so there’s no need for ugly words.
Last week I came home one day and opened my front screen door. Inside the doorframe perched at the bottom sat two little bags of candy from an upscale confectioner in these wimpy, crinkly bags. In fat red marker on one bag, someone had written, “ENJOY IF YOU HAVE THE NERVE.” The other bag backed up his buddy, taunting me with, “IF YOU DARE.”
My running gags, I recently noticed, end up being a tug of war with friends regarding odd physical items: DVDs, The Companion, and in some cases, bags of candy that may or may not have been violated prior to dropping off at my house.
I’m a trusting kinda guy, so it didn’t take long to dig into the bridge mix. I do love all those little chocolate balls with different textures and tastes, each one a big fat surprise. Chocolate raisins, milkballs, one that tasted a lot like a chocolate covered cherry, which was really, really good.
“You ate from it?” a friend said the other night on the phone, “It had a threatening note on it and you ate it?”
Oh, please.
These weren’t the first bag of candy to show up. I wasn’t particularly alarmed by the presence of the candy so much as the bloody note with jagged letters.
About three years ago, my buddy John and I stopped at a Fleet/Farm on our way to staff a NWTA weekend on a YMCA camp outside Brainerd. While checking out, I showed John my purchase, a bag of chalky, chocolate boulders, resulting in his prediction that utter disgust and movie-quality vomiting would soon follow.
“It’s mysterious.” I argued. “I’ve never actually seen candy this color or shape.”
“It’s chalky.” He grabbed the bag and broke one in half. “And it breaks like coral reef.”
To this day, I would not say that John was right about his assessment, but I would concede that I was utterly disgusted and almost vomited. The things tasted like a diswashing sponge you find under the oven six months later, think, ‘oh yeah,’ I thought I lost that. Regular water can no longer work its softening magic, it’s too far gone. The chocolate tasted like the under-the-oven part. (But I won’t admit that he was right.)
After eating a half dozen of these, complaining about the taste to anyone who I thought might offer sympathize, I finally did the right thing and stuffed the remaining chocolate into a friend’s gear. John had already warned me of the dire consequences in hiding the offending chocolate in his sleeping bag.Threats were made.
Jeeze. Sensitive.
Instead, I stuffed the candy in Brett’s duffel bag and promptly forgot about it, having solved an awkward problem. I hate throwing away food, even if it tastes like a sponge.
Hours later, I was surprised to find the exact same bag of candy back in my own luggage. I had seen Brett and hung out with him, but he had said nothing about finding the candy or returning it. I decided to assume Brett did not feel worthy of such a fine gift, but I wanted to insist he was worthy, so I promptly returned the candy to a side pocket in his backpack.
We spent the rest of the weekend sneaking into each others’ rooms re-stashing the candy when we could sneak into each other’s rooms. He caught me once hovering over his pillow case and we struggled while I tried to force one into his mouth. He swore and fought me, threatening a head butt, which would hurt because I have a big head. On Sunday, his gear was gone from the room, which meant I had to drop off the candy in Brett’s car, only to find it locked. A note on his luggage said, “Ha ha.”
The chocolate rode home in his spare tire wheel well, where, according to Brett, it weathered most of the winter.In the intervening years, it has passed back and forth between us several times. I have wrapped it in a gift box and gave it to him through a mutual friend, visiting from Texas. Breet once left the candy the air vent thingee on the hood of my car, which isn’t a terribly original hiding place, but considering I was driving at the time, trying to throw him off the hood doing half-doughnuts while he while he stared at me like a Bond villan, I was impressed. Brett’s committed.
Unfortunately, I was driving a guest at the time, a warrior who flew in from the east coast to staff with us and he clutched his sidedoor in terror while I honked the car mainically, screaming, “GET OFF MY FUCKING CAR!”
“NEVER!” Brett yelled back.
That was a good day.
I do remember that Brett and my car passenger became great friends, and he now mentors Brett. So other than a few terrifying moments, no permanent damage.
Less than a month ago, Brett tricked me into accepting the candy from another warrior, after a heartfelt blessing. We were once again at the same YMCA camp with easy access to each others’ luggage.
Hello Fleet/Farm nemesis. We meet again.
For an item that I paid less than $2 for, this nasty bag of candy has traveled hard: the chalky chocolate melted inside and then resolidified as a thin, dirty, chcololate plateau. There’s little broccoli greens in there from my attempt to turn Brett’s son against him. The bag has been handled by dozens of hands now, so it’s greasy with fingerprints.
Also on this last NWTA staffing, I found an anonymously delivered bag of chocolate, a bridge mix, in my duffel bag. Looked alright to me, no damage. No rabbit turds in the bottom or something. I felt confident Brett had put it there as a reminder that while we play fight, we love each other a lot.
Brett and I have breakfasts together after which we both leave vibrating, goofy and changed for the rest of the day, each charged up by having someone listen to us so lovingly. He’ll quote something brilliant, or a story he read, because loves to read up on the people in the world changing their hearts, and he craves to be one of them, without sometimes forgetting he already is. He is wise and clever too. And while he sounds like a hippie, he works a Marketing division head and he keeps surviving horrible layoffs because they think he’s defintely a keeper.
A week later, I finally thanked Brett for the bridge mix I had devoured, he laughed and promised that it wasn’t from him.
“Oh.” I said, “I thought you did it because you felt guilty.”
“Guilty? I’ve done nothing to feel guilt about. Quit projecting your shit on me.”
So, who put the latest candy offering in my duffel bag? I’ve asked a few men; no one admits to it. But they smile, as if maybe they might know. There’s a new secret chocolate agent out there.
Then a few days ago, the candy yelling at me in red marker on my front stoop. Two days after that, I had breakfast with Brett.
“I got some threatening candy on my front door the other day.” I said.
“Yeah, me too.” he said. “I figured it was from you or from Stephen.”
“Stephen. He confessed.”
“Yeah.”
Stephen is an exceptional, third musketeer. Stephen has witnessed Brett’s and my scarier nights, and we have his. I love being part of the Three Musketeers, crazy-fun friendships where there’s also some deep trust, deep work taking place. I understand now why those guys got matching hats and cloaks, because it’s fun to have a triad friendship that’s really rich, with lots of goofy swordplay and sometimes offering each other support.
Brett paused and looked at me, saying something like, “God, what is wrong with you? The bag said, ‘IF YOU DARE.”
“I am so sick of being threatened by candy.” I said a bit defensively.