Safer

Prompt: Banned

Hello Wednesday,

I once banned myself from a drugstore, which was one of a cluster of shops in the neighbourhood. You see, I was a hungry, rather stupid young teenager, who saw a huge, open display of chocolate bars, and no one around. So I very discreetly (I thought) loaded my pockets, one delicious candy treat at a time, until the owner/ pharmacist came out in his white smock and said to me, a regular customer: “Put them back.”

One chocolate bar at a time went back to its rightful spot. What was probably half a dozen treats seemed like a hundred, as that humiliating few minutes stretched into what felt like hours.

The owner did nothing else; did not call the police or try to notify my parents, for which I should have been grateful. I never set foot in that drugstore again; nor did I try and steal chocolate bars.

Now I buy mini chocolate bars to hand out on Halloween. This is a huge farce, since we rarely get children at our door anymore, so we get to eat the candy. We’ve never been “that house” that hands out healthy treats, unlike the subject of this, the first of my favourite cartoons this week:

cartoon-watermelon-halloween