It was probably a week or two later that I went to the Lloyd center to buy some pants; as I left Macy's with my purchase I smelled...caramel corn. The distinctive aroma was wafting out of Joe Brown's Carmel Corn store in the Mall and it triggered that innocuous conversation with Lou a week or two before. Hey! Why not bring Mary Barrett a box of caramel corn?
Let's understand what's going on here. Don't compare Joe's Carmel Corn with what you might pick up at the market that was made six months to a year ago. No, no. Joe rolled his succulent, fresh concoction out of his machine just a short while before your arrival.
Joe knows what he's doing to keep you coming back for more. He fills your $5.00 box to the top then puts it into a cello bag and dumps two more scoops on top that spill over into the bag. Look at that. Mary won't miss a few of those slop-overs so I take a couple to sample and then a couple more. OK, maybe a few more after that. Then I leave the bag of caramel corn at the Barrett's door.
We see each other at lunch the next day and I learn that Mary did indeed like the caramel corn.
She adds that the next time I go to the Lloyd center she would like me to bring her more. So a few days later I brought Mary an $8.00 box and since she was paying for it I knew it would be unethical of me to pilfer her overflow kernels, so I buy a bag for myself.
Time to face the truth: Both Mary and I are hooked. A day or two later I see the Barretts across the room at lunch, eating with a friend. Mary sees me and without moving her lips, sends the message with her eyes: GET MORE CARAMEL CORN.
Not only that but she's now hooked her friend who I now must include in the caramel corn runs. What to do? We know it's not good for us. All that sugar. All that butter. But it's there and available. We can buy all we want and it's cheap and it's legal and it tastes so darn good.
I know others will become hooked and soon I will be making daily runs for larger and larger numbers of the $8.00 boxes. Where will it end? Probably with the after-midnight knock on my door and the Russellville Park Security Team taking me to their interrogation room.
Busted. How do I tell my children?
