Candy canes

I recently came into a large shipment of candy canes.  Legally, let's say.  Well, there was a box of them just sitting out in the rest area parking lot.  Small ones, wrapped in plastic.  Maybe they were for the rest area, but they were closer to the woods than anything, so I figured, up for grabs.

Now I'm no abstainer, I like to snack on a bag of corn bites just like anybody else, but I've never been one for the sweet candies, so my first thought was finding a way to sell them.  I knew I didn't really have room at home and that Beth would not like it, so I drove over to Scott's place.

Scott works at the front desk at the lumber mill, and I was thinking he could sell the candy canes out of a little box at the desk to all the guys who came in there for lumber.  He was watching wrestling with his girlfriend when I got over there.  I knocked on the window.  His girlfriend screamed, she thought I was an intruder or something.  Scott waved me over to the side door.

I told him about my plan to offer candy canes for sale exclusively to patrons of the lumber mill he worked at.  He said he didn't think it was a good idea.  He said he couldn't sell things at the front desk of the lumber mill without his boss Cheryl's permission, and that she was unlikely to give it for candy canes from a box found in the woods.  I told him, well, skip that part when you're telling her, this is a cash payout we're looking at probably approaching three figures, which you'd have to be a fool and a coward to turn down.  He said he didn't want to and that I was making him miss wrestling.  I said, fine, I'd take the candy canes somewhere else.  He suggested I try Kevin, who works at the bank.  It was a very good idea but I just said I'd think about it, because I didn't want to give him any satisfaction.  But as I was walking off Scott said he wanted a 10 percent fee for every candy cane I sold at the bank because he'd directed me to Kevin.  I told him fine and he should go watch his precious wrestling and he said thank you, I will.  I kicked a front-yard flower of his as I was walking off, which felt good.

I figured I'd bring the candy canes to Kevin in the morning.  In the meantime, I brought the candy canes home and figured I'd keep them in the garage or something until I brought them over to Kevin's, but as soon as Beth saw me carrying the box in the door she stopped and said, no.  She said she didn't want me bringing anymore trash into the house, since I had already been storing a bag of old rags I'd also found, thinking that they'd come in handy down the line, and I didn't have anywhere to leave them but Beth's office, which she took to be some kind of provocation.  I told her that this wasn't trash, it was just a box that had been abandoned in the woods, but she didn't want to hear about it, and she said I would not be sleeping in the house as long as that box was around, so I said fine and drove off to Kevin's place that night.

Kevin was asleep or something so I had to pound on his door for a very long time before he answered, at least thirty minutes.  He asked me if it was emergency and I told him no, I just had this idea for selling a box of found candy canes at the bank where he worked.  He also said his boss wouldn't let him, he said they'd tried to have a little plate of cookies next to the deposit slips for a while but then the health inspector said that made them technically in the eyes of the law a restaurant and then he found a bunch of rats in the vault so now they can't have any food, even during lunch breaks they have to eat in their cars.  I said a candy cane is different from a cookie, it's packaged, it's more like a consumer product or an appliance whose utility is you eat it, so what's the harm in at least asking, and he said fine, because he was tired, but he wanted 50 percent.  I told him he wasn't getting 50 percent when I was providing the candy canes at cost and he just had to sit there and sell them.  He said 50 percent or nothing.  I said he could have 45, same as me, because I'd already promised 10 percent to Scott as part of a side deal, but he said that any side deals I'd made didn't apply to him, he wanted 50 percent or he'd walk, so I had to agree, even though it killed me and I was now a minority partner in the box of candy canes I'd found and still had to lug around, because Kevin said that I should just bring them to him at the bank tomorrow morning.

So I brought the candy cane box back home and stuffed it in the kids' old treehouse where Beth wouldn't find them.  I hung a sign that said, "KEEP OUT," which animals wouldn't be able to read, but I hoped they would instinctively understand the meaning of my angry, slashed handwriting.

I woke up in the morning without the enthusiasm one would expect of a man with a box of candy canes soon to be put up for sale.  Beth was angry with me because I'd been out late and wouldn't tell her why, and she chewed me out viciously for a significant part of the morning.  A 40 percent stake was hardly worth the toll these candy canes had taken on my time, health, friendships and marriage.  On the way to the bank, I called in sick to work because I knew this candy cane thing was probably going to take a pretty big chunk out of my day, but as soon as I made the call, I came to a sad realization.  Taking the candy canes from the woods had been an honorable try but it was time to admit that I'd failed.

So instead of meeting Kevin at the bank, I drove the candy canes over to town hall and got a meeting with the Mayor.  I told him I wanted to donate them to the children of the town during a Candy Cane Festival.  The Mayor agreed immediately, and said that the Festival would be held that weekend, in my honor.  I asked him if I could store the candy canes at town hall until then and he said, thankfully, "yes."

---

The Candy Cane Festival was held on the town green.  It seemed like the whole town had come!  The Mayor held a little ceremony where I was honored with a ribbon and a medal and a large photograph of my face, in recognition of my generosity.  All the signs that were hung read "Chris's Candy Cane Festival," identifying me by name.  My good feelings increased after seeing Scott and Kevin, standing with their arms crossed at the edge of the crowd, chagrined they could claim no percentage of my glory.

"And now," called out the Mayor, "let's dig in!"

With the Mayor's signal, the box was opened and the kids swarmed, pulling out handfuls of candy canes, laughing and smiling.  Beth took my hand.  "Isn't it nice to see something good you brought to the world?"

But it wasn't nice.  It made me feel sick.

I saw the kids biting into their little canes, sucking them down, waxy red slime spreading across their faces, and I saw what I'd done.  Those candy canes hadn't belonged to me.  I'd stolen them.  By giving them away, I'd hoped to chase the evil off, but all I'd done was stain the children -- I'd made them complicit in the wrong I'd done.  And now the consequences would be visited upon innocent kids.

So what I did is I started yelling.  I yelled at the kids to put the candy canes down, and when they didn't, I ran around, knocking the canes out of their mouths and onto the ground.  They certainly cried a lot, and in aiming for the candy canes I accidentally struck a child or two very hard, but I didn't stop until all the candy canes had been knocked into dirt, even as parents tried to pull me off and knock me down and assault me.  Then I grabbed the box and drove off.

When I got home there was already an angry message on the machine from the Mayor, calling me a lunatic and other such names, and demanding I return the medal I'd been given that afternoon.  But they'll have to take it from me.