SNACK FOODS

I'm not big on so-called snack foods; well, the junk food kind, at least. Those glow-in-the-dark Cheesies are particularly disgusting. You know the kind -- turn out the lights before firing up the DVD or VHS player and before you on the table is an orange-glow-emitting bowl of those phosphorescent treats.

However, I am a glutton. Put any food in front of me, even the infamous orange morsels of nutritional goodness, and I will consume until they are no more. Names like Hostess, Lays, or Family Best are always welcome to attend one of my movie nights. And they are even better than human movie-going mates as they do not make any noise... as I scoop them up by the handful.

We have a cleaning lady come to the house every two weeks just to keep things up to spec. She made the mistake, during casual conversation a few weeks ago, of mentioning that a friend of hers gets samples from various chocolate brands. Of course, I made a joke that if she could spare any, I would do the good thing and consume the good things. (I am not known to buy chocolates of any kind, and cannot even remember the last time I bought a chocolate bar.)

Well, two weeks later, the wonderful cleaning lady came to the house to do her fine work, and she admitted to me right off the top, "I'm so sorry, I forgot the chocolates I promised you... I even left them by the door so I would not forget". I mentioned to her very nicely, "If you forget them next time, then don't even bother showing up to work".

Two boxes of mints and various chocolate shapes made their way to me two weeks later. Our cleaning lady is a woman of honour.

I ate, ate, ate those sugary treats until they were gone, gone, gone. The 'After Eight' mints were good for "ten to seven"; "a half past eleven"; "twenty times after dinner hour"; and "30 seconds to six a.m."

And then they're were none...

... for a couple of weeks.