Willie Wonka

Mr. & Mrs. Wonka were senior citizens by age, but had the youthful addiction to candy with which I am also afflicted.

It made me feel good about myself to see their unabashed love for candy.

As I rattled-off my sales pitch and exchanged laughs with these customers, I continued to observe more and more candy stashes all around their house. I fought through every urge I had to ask, “Do you mind if I...”

I didn’t go into every room in their house, but based on the room we were in, it looked as though you couldn’t move two feet in any direction without bumping into sugary delights.

In my house, I stick to the same basic indulgences: twizzlers and jelly beans.

The Wonka’s, though, were true sugar junkies. It looked like an old school candy store.

There were goldfish-bowl-sized glass containers filled with all different types of candies.

The first to catch my eye were the containers filled with old fashioned hard candy. This made sense to me. Old people had old people candy. Surely, this was the candy they grew up eating. I imagined the tales they would tell of the good ol’ days when a pound of candy was a nickel, or maybe even just a penny.

Next to catch my eye was the container filled with those small boxes of Dots.

I’m not ashamed to say this was surprising to me.

First, who buys Dots? This was the worst candy to get at Halloween. Dots should have been named Rocks. Wrapped pennies were better than Dots.

I am fairly certain the candy engineers at Dots have mastered the process of manufacturing stale candy. Not once have I opened a box of Dots and been able to actually chew a piece right from the start. Dots are working class candy in the sense that you have to give a solid blue collar effort to eat a box of this stuff.

I shook off my chills of disbelief at those Dots and let my eyes gaze upon greener pastures. There, next to Mrs. Wonka’s chair sat the promise land, a glass container filled with Tootsie Rolls.

Somewhere along the path of my sugar addiction I had a solid run of only buying Tootsie Rolls, and Mrs. Wonka sat next to a container filled with all different sized Tootsie Rolls from the tiniest to the King Size which sit inside their own little cardboard sleeve inside their plastic wrapper.

I was entranced. Luckily, I was able to mindlessly continue my presentation and make small talk while my mind drifted to memories of eating Tootsie Rolls and my path from Tootsie Rolls to Costco containers of Tootsie Roll pops which were the only way to improve on Tootsie Rolls and were exponentially more enjoyable then Blow Pops, neither of which the Wonka’s had, at least not in plain sight.

The containers of candy continued throughout the room. If there was a place to rest a picture frame, it was occupied by a canister of candy.

There were more sugary candies of course, but there were also containers with chocolates. The Wonka’s took in all types of candy for refuge without discrimination.

A sale come of this appointment, but I didn’t get the order.

It belonged to the clerk who sold me my bag of jellybeans on the drive back to my resting place for the night.

Public Restrooms

Life on the road has a lot of perks.

A public restroom is not one of them.

I guess it all depends on the situation. I certainly prefer the availability of public restrooms over the alternative of having to tend to the calls of nature in the presence of Mother Nature.

They are also often a source of great situational hilarity. This is usually in the form of signage posted within the bathroom by “Management.”

Some of the more entertaining read as follows:

• Caution: Hot water is Hot
• All Employees must wash hands before returning to work (accompanied by an empty soap dispenser)
• If this bathroom is not cleaned to your satisfaction, please alert management for a complimentary beverage.

What shocked me more than anything else though, as I began frequenting more and more public restrooms in my travels, was the amount of cell phone usage.

Time and time again, I will use the restroom and witness men at the urinal, or hear men in the stalls, having phone conversations.

Seriously guys?

What possible occurrence is happening in your life so emergent you cannot wait until you are out of the restroom to address it?

These “gentlemen” are not doctors, stockbrokers, or first aids to the president of the United States of America or any other government leader calling for immediate assistance.

Unfortunately, I know this because I can hear one side of the riveting conversation about how their days are going, and the struggles they are facing dealing with the intricacies of their day.

These typically sound like the conversations you hear on reality TV shows such as The Housewives of Whateverville, Intervention, Bar Rescue, or Deadliest Catch.

They are conversations about nothing and they are often more painful to endure than the scent of the public restroom.

Can’t you just send a text? Or, better yet, wait just a few more minutes, take a true bathroom break, and then immediately return to your need to be connected to someone at every possible moment of your life.

It’s just rude of these men to carry on conversations in the restroom. It’s annoying to all of the other people using the restroom.

But, as inconsiderate as these babbling bathroom bandits may be, I blame the people on the other end of the phone.

What do they think about themselves as a human beings to spend their time talking with people who they know are currently working out an exit strategy?

Clearly, there is some level of self-respect lacking on the other end of the phone. It’s not like these people can’t hear the glorious sounds of toilets flushing, hand dryers pushing out hot air, and automatic towel dispensers at work.

Have some self-respect. Take the first step of many on the path to actually liking yourself: Hang-up the phone.