Long story short, when Mom asked I said “screw it” and told her the truth.
“I fully intend to spend the evening abusing my sweet tooth…”
“Where you boys off to?” Mom asked us with a hint of suspicion–and to be fair, we probably did look like a pair of junior high boys with questionable evening plans.
“Uh, you cool if I spend the night over at Nick’s?” I asked her.
It was a Friday night, and Nick just lived down the street from us on Point Mugu Naval Base–a secure facility that we were somehow managing to live on illegally–so I didn’t think that it was too big of an ask. Even for Mom, who landed hard on the side of parenting that is the complete opposite of permissive.
“That depends,” Mom said slightly raising an eyebrow. “What do you plan on doing?”
Truth be told, we had just recently stumbled upon Nick’s step-dad’s secret candy stash, and we had been biding our time for a night when his parents and siblings would be gone most of the evening so we could dip our indulgent, grubby little paws into it. Included in that stash of high-end sweets were vintage Miami Spice Drops from 1986 (one of only two years they were ever made). Now, we had really never heard of such delicacies, but we could tell from the packaging that they weren’t your average gummy bears, so we were particularly excited to see what the presumed hub-bub was all about.
Just one problem though: all while I was growing up, Mom attempted to enforce a pretty hard no-sweets policy, and there was know way in hell that she would let me spend one more minute with Nick if she had even the slightest inkling what kind of sugary crack-cocaine was poorly hidden in his parents’ bedroom closet.
Oh, and just a second problem, too: my entire life I have been cursed with the utter and complete inability to tell a lie, especially when it come to my beloved mother. This curse bore down particularly hard on me during my 8th grade year–the year in which find ourselves now.
Nick glanced over at me kinda nervously in anticipation of our best laid plans blowing up spectacularly in our faces, on account of my stupid curse.
Thinking quick on my feet, I decided to lean hard into what I do best.
“We’re going to sit around and a sh*t-load of candy,” I said without a hint of sarcasm.
“Hah. Yeah right!” Mom replied with a half-snort. “You boys go enjoy your evening, and I’ll see you around lunchtime tomorrow, oh humorous son of mine.”
I just about had to drag Nick out the door by his ear, as he seemed to be paralyzed in disbelief that my little stunt of telling the whole, dirty truth had actually worked.
“C’mon, dude, let’s jet over to your place and get to snackin’ before you parents get home,” I said, reinvigorated by the success of my unconventional strategy.
“Bro,” Nick muttered on his way out the door, “I seriously gotta try telling the truth more often…”
“Hmmm…” Nick chewed thoughtfully on his Miami Spice Drop, investigating all the flavors and textures with his tongue and palate. “Very interesting…not what I was expecting.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I said, furrowing my brow and putting way too much thought into analyzing the flavor profile.
“First thing I really noticed was that they were unexpectedly fuzzy,” Nick said observantly.
“That’s true,” I said, holding one up to the kitchen light and inspecting it like a jeweler would inspect a diamond. “I would even dare say they look little bushes.”
“Yeah, this candy is very ‘bushy’–an interesting experience for the tongue, indeed…” Nick opined.
“Well, I guess that must of been a whole thing with fancy candies back in the 80’s?” I hypothesized.
“I suppose,” Nick said. “The 80’s in general seemed pretty obsessed with all things hair.”
“Hmmph,” I grunted, putting a period on that part of our conversation. “But how about the spectrum of flavors, eh?”
“Yeah, that was definitely way more nuanced than I was expecting,” Nick noted.
“Mmm-hmm. With most candies, it’s a single blast of sugar and a handful of flavors,” I commented. “But with these drops, I would dare say that the experience evolves in your mouth with time.”
“Oh, the unexpected depth and sophistication!” Nick raved. “That was definitely unanticipated, and was uniquely refreshing.”
“Not unlike getting squirted in the eye by one of those Old Faithful candies, I bet!” I quipped.
We both chuckled heartily at the memory of one of the other old exotic candies we had just sampled, a Gusher-like confection shaped much like a pearl featuring a juicy-filled center. The candy itself wasn’t particularly humorous; it was the bag that they came in, which featured a cartoon version of a man biting into one and accidentally squirting a nearby woman in the eye. Again, we just wrote it off as another weird-ass product of the 80’s.
“Oh, shenanigans!” he said as we went in for another round of belly-laughing at the thought of that utterly ridiculous packaging.
Right about that moment, though, we heard the garage door opening.
“Oh, shenanigans is right!” I said, perhaps dropping an expletive or two in there.
“Quick, you start making us some PB&J’s in the kitchen–we can eat them to cover the evidence on our breath, and it will also give you the chance to distract them while I run upstairs and put the goods back where I found them!” Nick ordered.
“That’s a Texas-sized 10-4, good buddy!” I said scurrying into the kitchen.
I could hear Nick’s footsteps on the upstairs landing just as the door leading from the garage to the kitchen opened and Nick’s family tromped in.
“Oh, hey B.J., I didn’t realize you were spending the night. What have you been boys up to?” Nick’s mom asked congenially.
“Oh, hi there, Nick’s Mom!” I said as casually as I could muster. “We’ve just been playing some computer games and I thought I would take a break to come down and make us a midnight snack.”
“Cool, cool” she said. “Well, you know that our pantries are always open to you.”
“I sure do, and I appreciate that so much, Mrs. Nick’s Mom. Anyways, I better get these PB&J’s up to Nick.”
I was having to spout falsehoods through my teeth, and I could tell that I was on the verge of having the wheels fall of this wagon of lies.
“But…are those just naked slices of bread?” Nick’s mom looked at my plate slightly confused.
Panic was setting in quickly, so I had to extricate myself from the situation, no matter the cost.
“Welp, gotta run! Nothing to see here! Or smell…”
“Any chance we could confer privately? ” Nick asked his step-dad.
Clearly exhausted with his fruitless interrogation of us, he acquiesced.
“Sure. You boys need to discuss whatever you need to. I’ll be waiting in here whenever you figure your shit out,” he said, though not in an angry way.
Turns out, Nick hadn’t stacked the candy back in their original location quite exactly as he had found them, and his mom had noticed this tiniest of discrepancies. It was upon further inspection that she had discovered several pieces conspicuously missing from some of the bags.
Now, I’ll never figure out why she cared so much about any of the candy being missing–I guess because it was vintage stuff they didn’t make any more, perhaps–but apparently she was accusing her husband of going and eating the candy behind her back. I didn’t get that either: it was his stash–or at least we assumed it was his–so why did she have panties all up in a wad over it.
Any how, he had quickly figured out that since he hadn’t been the guilty party, something else must be afoot under his roof.
“Okay, Nick, he’s offering to let us off the hook completely–we just have to come clean, alright?” I recapped the plea deal that was on the table.
Nick sighed deeply.
“Poor guy’s taking the fall for us, so I guess that’s the least we could do for him out of respect,” Nick conceded.
“Yeah, and seriously, my head is about to explode after denying our guilt for almost an hour straight,” I said rubbing my eyes with the palm of my hands. “I just wasn’t built to tell lies, yo.”
“Gotta, say, though,” he said, putting an affirming hand on my shoulder, “I’m proud of you for holding out as long as you did. You’re a good friend.”
“Thanks man. But maybe next time we just own up to our shit in the first place and face the music?”
I swore that living with a lie was worse punishment than anything Nick’s mom could have possibly dealt out, so it was a relief when we went back into the kitchen.
“Yeah, it was us,” Nick said with a sheepish look on his round face.
“Thanks, Mr. Nick’s Mom, for taking the blame for us,” I said gratefully, knowing that word of our little fiasco wouldn’t make it back to my own mother.
“Boys, I appreciate your honesty. Now, as you were soldiers, as you were…” he said, dismissing us, clearly glad that our hours-long standoff was finally over.
We turned to head back upstairs to where our computer game awaited us.
But right before we made it out of the kitchen, I turned with one last question for Nick’s step-dad.
“I just gotta ask, though…what was the deal with all that old candy anyways?” I inquired.
“Oh, I’m surprised it wasn’t right up your alley, boys,” he said with a wry grin on his face. “After all, don’t forget that you two little squirts are weird-ass products of the 80’s as well…”
Content created on: 6/7 July 2024 (Sat/Sun)
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