My Life As A Hobby

  I am so mad at my granddaughter. Oh, she meant well, but that really doesn’t matter. The damage is done. And part of it is our fault. We’ve been teaching her about sharing.  Let me explain. On Halloween night, after she had filled an entire Walmart grocery bag with candy by canvassing six neighborhoods, she was kind enough to give me a few samples of her plunder. She even dumped the contents of the bag onto our kitchen table, which is the Halloween equivalent of a fisherman showing off his catch. And that’s where I saw them, sitting among the Dum Dums and tiny Snickers bars. There were a half dozen green and yellow bags with a happy little character that seemed to be waving at me. Little did I know I was being lured by a candy demon.   I reached for one, tore the corner, and emptied the meager contents into my hand. I just opened Pandora’s box, also known as Sour Patch Kids candy. You don’t bite these things — you almost gum them. Hence the name gummies. And they’re as ...