I need a candy fix...

Back when I worked at the law firm (a job with memories that I’ve tried to shove into some rarely-accessed corner of my brain), many of the secretaries used to keep dishes of candy on their desk. There was an obvious hierarchy at the firm – the lawyers, of course, being the center of the law firm universe, followed by the planetary bodies of paralegals. The paralegals would metaphorically revolve around the bright, burning egos of the lawyers, always at their beck and call and apparently permanently entangled in their gravitational pull. These people took themselves and their jobs much too seriously to ever have something as frivolous as candy anywhere within their general vicinity.

But then there were the secretaries. They were the nicest, most laid-back, and arguably the hardest workers of the entire bunch. They were the ones who would actually smile and say hello, and say crazy things like “please” and “thank you” when they needed projects taken care of. AND they had candy…

Usually, when I was at work, I liked to hide out in the file room. There was plenty to do, and my boss only trusted two of us – me and a coworker named Marc – to go anywhere near the files. And the best part of the file room was the fact that it was MY domain – if anyone wanted to remove a file, they had to ask me. If anyone wanted to FILE a file, they had to leave it on the shelf near the door and I would go through the process of logging it in the computer and finding its proper place in the room. Not even the lawyers, with their giant egos and comfortable place atop the office hierarchy, were allowed to shuffle through the file room without my permission. A fact I came to love, by the way…

But every now and then, the guy who delivered the interoffice mail would be late, or sick, or on vacation, or need to leave early – and I would take on the mail duties. This would entail collecting all mail/faxes/memos/packages, attaching slips of paper to each one with the initials of the recipient (everything was done by initials… after I’d been working there a few months, I could’ve told you anyone’s initials, but not necessarily everyone’s name), and then arranged in order of which office was where. Then I’d scoop up all the mail and begin a lap around the 18th floor, followed by a jog down the stairs to the 17th floor and another lap around the building…

And the best part of delivering the mail around the office was that I HAD to walk past all the secretaries’ desks, and more often than not, at least one or two of them had a candy dish sitting out. And since it was the nice, friendly secretaries, anyone who walked by felt free to help themselves to the candy. After a while, I discovered that my favorite candy dish was on the desk of one of the secretaries near the copy center. She always had Tootsie Rolls – but not the usual chocolate Tootsie Rolls. No, she had a whole bowl of Tootsie Rolls in different flavors, like lime and orange and cherry and vanilla. I had never seen these colorful Tootsie Rolls before – I’d only ever seen the usual, common, run-of-the-mill chocolate ones. So every time I walked past her desk, I’d grab a few Tootsie Rolls in different flavors, and then head back to the sanctuary of the file room to enjoy them.

And when I quit my job at the law firm, I totally forgot about those yummy unusual Tootsie Rolls. Forgot about them, that is, until my recent trip to Chicago. Because there at the front desk of the hotel, in big, inviting dishes, were piles and piles of flavored Tootsie Rolls. I hadn’t seen them since my days of mail runs at the law firm. The hotel seemed to rotate their candy supply – in the morning they’d set out dishes of Starburst candy, and in the afternoon they’d fill the dishes with Tootsie Rolls. I made sure to grab a handful of Tootsie Rolls every evening, so I’d have enough to tide me over until the next evening…

And since Rick has made that hotel his temporary “home” in Chicago, he’ll be staying there every week until we have a house/condo/apartment up there. So last week I reminded him to bring me a few Tootsie Rolls from the hotel… but apparently they ran out – because all they had the entire week was Starburst (at least that’s what Rick SAID…). And I asked him again tonight when he got to the hotel – any Tootsie Rolls? Nope. Just Starburst. What happened to the Tootsie Rolls? Were they ever really there on that desk? Or were they just a figment of my imagination? At the risk of sounding like a five-year-old: I want more Tootsie Rolls!

I’ll just wait here patiently… eventually someone at that hotel will come to their senses… :)