In the Absence of Something Substantial: And Then There are Days you Open the Case, and Realise you Left your Guitar at Home

True story.

My mother likes to send me packages. That's just the sort of mom she is. Let's not lie, I love it. It always makes my heart smile a little bit when I come home and there's an oversized bubble-wrap envelope stuffed into my little mailbox.

I work in the shipping industry, as many of you already know, shipping out FedEx boxes all day long. I work retail--I deal with a constant stream of new customers most of the day. Part of good customer service is engaging with the customers, so i've got a few talk tracks that I use. Since we've got new people coming through the door all the time, I can recycle them pretty much ad naseum. But i've got one for those moms who come in shipping off packages to their sons and daughters in college. we've had quite a few lately, as plenty of parents packed off their kids to school for the first time a month or two ago. But i always talk about how that's the best thing ever, when you're in school, to get those care packages. It's like Christmas; best. day. ever. I've even got one customer, a regular, who ships stuff off to her two granddaughters in Utah every couple of weeks. She send them cookies, candy, makeup, whatever. She's super friendly and we talk whenever she comes in. one of the things that she always sends to them: buffalo wing flavored pretzel bites. She bought a big ol' case of them, cause you can't get them in Utah apparently, and she ships a couple of bags out to them every time. And they really taste buffalo wing-y. Why do I know? Because i mentioned one day that they sounded really good. The next day, guess who shows up with a bag of buffalo wing pretzel bites for yours truely? If you guessed the tooth fairy, you would be wrong.

Anyways, I have a point to all of this. One day I get one of these care packages, and inside of it is a bag of licorice. I like licorice just fine, though I'd hardly say I'm a connoisseur. I had the unfortunate experience recently of a Jager Bomb recently, and that's sort of like drinking a high explosive glass of licorice. I may not mention that it was in a dive bar, nay, dive pool hall, in Dallas, TX. it is entirely possible that there is a ceiling tile with my name written on it in an undisclosed location in Dallas, Tey-has. Oh, nate.

See, look at that. I already got sidetracked again. Bag of licorice. Care package. Well, the story goes that I also received a phone call from my father. Kim Are is long known in our family to be a horder of candy items, and on the unfortunate time that he may pass from this world, i expect to find in the place of a will a treasure map with the location of his candy stash marked with a big ol' fat X. He tells me, on the phone that is, to beware! Be careful nate! I sent you a bag of licorice, he says, but you must tread with extreme caution! You may try the licorice, if you dare, but do so at your own risk! It is extremely habit forming! Addicting, I believe was the exact term he used.

Oh, I dared. I opened that bag, and I even tried the licorice. It was good, i will not lie, as far as licorice goes. But there is only room in my heart for one addiction, and that is caffeine.

I don't exactly remember that brand of licorice (though I'm sure my father does), but here's one that I got the other day i loved a little bit. In honor of that story, and of the good ol' father-figure-dude-man-sir, I present to you the:

Kim Are Award for Excellence In Licorice-Addicting Candies:

Trader Joe's Allsorts-a-Licorice

For Today, then:

Worked on the novel! Slow progress, but more progress than the last few times. Couple more nights like this and I'll be done with this infernal chapter! I take it back, the chapter before this was actually infernal, on account of introducing a character who is the devil. Literally.
State of the Business address with my manager at work. Our conclusion? My store needs to make more money. I'm trying to figure out what part of this revelation was...relevatory.
Dinner, involving a pork chop, vidalla onion, jalapeno pepper, cottage cheese, and mashed potatoes. Po-tay-toh.

Beer of the Dinner for the Day: