Sweet Seduction

I am being tempted. Enticed. Lured. Charmed. Beguiled.

By a bag of jelly beans.

Not just any kind of jelly beans, you see – not Jelly Belly, or even Brach’s – but CHEAP jelly beans. The kind that say “99 cents” on the bag, but you know really were purchased from a bin labeled “4 for $1″ where they were hanging out with off-brand orange slices and suckers with loops instead of sticks.

The harlots.

To make matters worse, they’re the kind that come in 8 different flavors, including licorice (LICORICE!!) and you know from experience (because you’ve spent years eating the jellybeans out of your kids’ Easter baskets) will taste exactly like the bag says they will. The pink ones will really taste like strawberry, instead of just disgusting.

Life is so not fair.

Normally I wouldn’t have such an item in my house, especially since all my kids are past the Easter basket stage. However, I didn’t bring them here – The Young One did. And since he’s inherited my confection snobbery (“What’s with the Tootsie Roll? Where’s the Dove Deluxe Dark Chocolate Truffle?”), he didn’t bring it home willingly. No, it was his payment for mowing our next-door neighbor’s lawn.

Our neighbors are 60ish, so they’re really not that much older than us; maybe 15 years or so. They’ve retired, their kids are grown and they’re getting to the point where the big house – and big lawn – are more than they care to deal with. However with the housing market what it is, they’re afraid to sell, and they’ve recruited The Young One to take over the lawn-mowing. Naturally, he took them up on it, because like most 13-year-old boys he’s discovered that his lawn mowing, snow shoveling and trash removal services can be quite lucrative, especially when Mean Old Mom refuses to shell out $300 for an XBox 360 when he has every other gaming console known to mankind, including a Wii that she went through Hell and back to acquire for him. Have you tried buying a Wii? Purchasing tactical nuclear missiles on the black market have got to be easier – and cheaper – than buying a Wii.

But I digress.

Anyhoo, I think The Young One had slightly higher expectations when it came to payment. After all, he could mow our lawn blindfolded and we’d pay him $10 (five for the front and five for the back) as long as we don’t have to do it. If he does a conscientious job (and the kid really is conscientious) we pay him twice that. So I think he was rather taken aback when he got $6 and a bag of jelly beans; especially when she gave him $11 and a package of temporary pirate tattoos last week.

I mean, how do you follow up temporary pirate tattoos with cheap jelly beans?

At any rate, the bag has been on my desk, where he threw them, since Saturday (I told you he was a chocolate snob). And for some reason, I’ve left them there.

To mock me. And taunt me.

Did you know the amount of green jelly beans in the average bag is disproportionate to the rest of the colors?

At least the pink ones aren’t disgusting.