Thursday 17 January 2019

Marshmallow Santa’s

Well, it is mid January and the holiday season is over.

The gifts have all been given and in some cases returned. Santa is taking a well deserved rest, the Christmas tree and all of the decorations are down, the outside lights have been put away for another year and except for an overlooked decoration we will find in June, Christmas is done! All of that wonderful food that graced our tables and refrigerators has all been eaten. We have decimated the cookies, candies, cheese ball, pretzels, chips and dip, holiday nog drinks and other holiday special dishes. There are some remnants left, the hard candies that no one really wanted but due to Hobson’s choice I find myself eating now. I don’t know if it is because I am cheap or if I am just clinging to Christmas by eating that last mini candy cane.

It kind of reminds me of a couple of weeks after Halloween when I was a kid. All of the good candy was gone long before and all that was left were the foul tasting toffees that even my brother wouldn’t take from me. I would need to talk myself into eating them, but after all and at the end of the day they were made from sugar.

Tonight I was rummaging in the back of the pantry hoping to find a month old snickerdoodle or two when I came out with an old bag of mini marshmallows. They must have been used last winter or the winter before for after sledding hot chocolate with the grandkids. I knew they were old because they were hard to the touch, not rock hard but a hard that your typical marshmallow doesn’t have. I do so love old marshmallows! It was Christmas and Halloween rolled into one! They won’t last very long, but if I ration them I might have a week of bliss ahead of me.

I developed this bizarre taste when I was a kid going to the small town near my grandmother’s cottage. The General store would have a small assortment of candy and a large assortment of worms. Usually on the counter would be chocolate covered marshmallow Santas on a stick. They had been hanging around since the previous Christmas or the one before and marked down to 10¢. The chocolate had white spots which I liked to think was due to dampness and not flies laying their eggs on Santa’s beard and of course the mallow inside was brittle. I was glass is half full kind of kid. I think I was the only kid that bought those Santas and when I went back to the city I always checked the smoke shops for stale chocolate covered marshmallow pops. I never had any luck.

Anyways, the holidays are over and first thing tomorrow I need to shovel the snow off of the walk. Winter is here for the foreseeable future. SHIT!


Maybe later on tomorrow I’ll go out and buy some marshmallows for next January. Two bags should get me to February or March 2020.

Tuesday 15 January 2019

Open a Box of Smarties

I was walking Buster through the high school parking lot the other day when I saw an interesting looking container on the ground. I nudged it with my toe a couple of times while Buster waited with infinite patience and eventually I decided that it was worth bending over to pick it up. Believe me; I have picked up more than my share of odd things in my travels.

It turned out that it was a container to hold “One Pre-Rolled Cannabis Joint” that had 23.0% THC. I could only keep Buster in one place for so long, so we continued on our way and I put the container in my pocket. The good thing about walking a dog is that they have a never ending interest in the smell of other dog’s urine. While he was deciding male/female…friend/foe, I tried to get the top off of the container. Not as easy as you might think. I managed to pull the outer casing off of the thing, but that’s as far as I could get in 30 second stops.



When we got home I went down to the workshop to figure out how to open my new find. I had visions of a free joint! The way I figured it is that if I couldn’t get the damned thing open when I was straight, there was no way a stoned high school kid could do it in a dark car. Well, cudos to the youth of today because when I finally managed to open it (push and twist the lid clockwise) the only thing inside was the smell of the joint. Oh well, it is still a cool container for something.

I can’t help but wonder what a joint costs in the stores now that it is legal. I am pretty sure that to make the container would cost more than I used to pay for an ounce. I am talking fifty years ago of course, but still.

I just checked it out on Google and a joint in Alberta would cost me $6.64 and I am assuming there would be GST on top of that, so $7.50 or $8.00. Not bad I guess, but it depends on how long the high lasts and how strong it is. I will probably never find out, partly because I am pretty cheap and also the last time I smoked 35 years ago I went into kind of a catatonic shock. Not sure that it would be worth it. If I develop some kind of chronic pain, fuck Aspirin and Tylenol, I am using Maui Wowie, Acapulco Gold or Heavenly Sunset.


I am going to keep walking thru the high school parking lot because eventually there will be some kid that was like me when I couldn’t open a box of Smarties. Hell, I couldn’t decide what candy bar to buy in the first place