Maybe I need to start wearing a bib.
It started with a mishap Wednesday at a local restaurant.
I had just grabbed hold of my glass of tea, when the overhead ceiling fan picked up the receipt and began to blow it across the table.
In an effort to save the receipt, I knocked over the tea and it all went cascading in fountains to the floor.
I know as a journalist I am supposed to spill the tea, but somehow I don’t think that is what is meant exactly.
I suddenly felt embarrassed, maybe even like Steve Urkel of my growing up years.
“Did I do that?” Yes, I did. And ruined a perfectly good glass of tea, too.
I had this feeling that all eyes were on me, like I was some intergalactic visitor from Tattooine in the bar scene from Star Wars. In fact, as a teetotaler, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar anyways. Tea is the hardest thing I drink. Or, at least I try to drink it, if I don’t spill it all over myself.
The spills didn’t stop with just my tea.
Later on, my Aunt gave me a handful of Hershey kisses. It is about the closest thing to a kiss I ever really get these days, but it satisfies the sweet tooth, too.
This was dark chocolate in a royal purple wrapper. I was given instructions to share them with my Mama went I got home and I attempted to do so.
It is chock full of, well, chocolate, but also, according to Aunt Diane, it is jam-packed with antioxidants and very little preservatives or additives — and it is good for you. She said she eats several dark chocolate Hershey every night before she goes to bed.
We would have, too, Mama and I, had I not dropped them in the dirt in the dark of night.
I found one and lost one and ended up with two of the three if my math is correct. Knowing how I do math, it’s probably not.
I hate to lose anything, especially Hershey chocolate kisses that I already get few of and antioxidants that I need more of.
The wrapper was purple, and I searched around in the dark. When she was a child, Cousin Eliza Riggins once told her Papa Vann we could see in the dark because “we have brown eyes.” But, that’s not exactly so. I don’t know why I couldn't see it, but I didn’t.
I found it the next morning. The armadillos and opossums and fire ants that reside in the yard at Mama’s apparently don’t know the antioxidants in the Hershey kisses are good for them as they didn't find it.
But, I did. That is, until it melted.
Yes, even in last week’s cool weather, the dark chocolate Hershey kiss in the purple wrapper melted.
It was in the console of the car where I had put it for safe keeping.
I put my new, replacement tea glass that I managed not to spill in the console. I put it smack dab in the middle of the the kiss that turned into a giant purple clad glob of dark chocolate that I promptly smeared on the dress shirt I was wearing, as I was headed into a very public meeting.
It looked like I had smeared the contents of a baby diaper on the front of my chest. You get the picture. I didn’t have any Shout, but I did want to yell.
I managed to clean it up to look halfway decent, though I know people secretly said, he needs a bib. Or, he’s from Tattooine.
And, maybe I do or maybe I am.
Doing spot treatment after I got home, I found the chocolate had soaked clear through my dress shirt and my t-shirt. My tshirt became not a sweat shirt, but a sweet shirt.
The moral of this story — if there is one — is I might need a bib, don’t literally spill the tea and take advantage of the kisses and antioxidants you can.
And, eat the chocolate and don’t wear it.
• Jason Deal is News Editor for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at jdeal@blacksheartimes. news.
