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Halloween was over, the chocolate candy consumed, and
empty wrappers told the tale.
Only the good stuff was eaten, leaving mini-Lollipops,
generic copies and Jolly Rogers in candy collecting containers. The order had
been given to toss the losers away.
The challenge began when ten-year old Lily handed me a
Cherry Mini-Lollipop, and kept the grape for herself. “How many licks will it take to get to the
chocolate center?”
We both looked at the candy on a stick, judged how
small the round candy was, and made predictions. Me: 75, Lily: 50. How long
would this competition take? Me: 30
minutes, Lily (bravado of a 10 year old): 20 minutes, for sure.
Ready, steady, GO!
20 minutes in, I had done 120 (cherry). And Lily was up
to 100.
25 minutes in, I was up to 200, and Lily was leading
with 220.
30 minutes in, I had moved to 308, and Lily was all
purple smiles at 315.
As the minutes mounted, my jaws cramped, the type of
cramp one gets after eating a bag of Sweet Tarts.
We struggled with sore tongues. “You’re going down, Grandma…”
600 to 582---653 to 690…would it ever end?
The end slipped in at 45 rough minutes. Me: 915 and Lily: 998.
Lily danced around the kitchen, hands in the air,
singing “Eye of the Tiger”. Me? I went to look into a mirror. Sticking out my cherry red tongue, sweet and
sour zones in the tongues had worked themselves raw.
Rule of tongue: eat all the chocolate stuff and dump
the rest. The Lollipops are not a single
lick.
The
rules of this are rather vague. But I
wouldn’t dare to contest them to a 10 year old dancing around the kitchen
singing “Eye of the Tiger”, and knows all the words.
