Sweet
There are two hidden stashes at Evans World Headquarters – two tiny little havens established exclusively for mommy and daddy and their impenetrable adherence to the seven deadly sins. These are places where children dare not go, lest they become scarred and warped and prematurely introduced to the glory of no-holds-barred grown-upness.
The first of our secret hideaways is The Drawer of Sex and Violence.
The second does not yet have a name, but I suppose it doesn’t need one. It is the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet mounted just above the toaster and the coffee maker. The kids can’t reach it. So far they’ve never seen it either.
It’s the shelf where God lives.
More specifically, it’s where Hot Wife and I keep our own private candy store – M&Ms, Dove chocolates, Hot Tamales, Hershey Kisses, chocolate donuts, leftover Halloween candy, and so on. (I think there might also be a few vials of heroin up there, too, but you didn’t hear that from me.)
As a parent, there are times when your life depends on taking a sunrise and sprinkling it with dew. Amid the insanity of refusals to bathe and the flow of tears over oatmeal that turned out too runny and the buzzkills from coitus interruptus, sometimes the chance to sneak into the kitchen and mow down a bite-sized Baby Ruth is the only thing standing between you and the ledge of a fortieth story window.
But I blew it. I gave it away.
I was in the kitchen the other night, cleaning up after dinner, when I remembered that the package of Entenmann’s chocolate donuts I bought had gone horribly stale (“horribly stale” = cracked molars). When I reached up to the shelf to grab the box (intending to throw it out), my son walked in.
“Whoa,” he said.
I screamed “Fuck!” inside my mind.
“What is that, dad?” he asked.
“What’s what?”
“What’s all of that candy up there for?”
“What candy? I don’t see any candy. Candy?”
He points. “Right there, dad. I see packages of M&Ms and stuff.”
“Oh, that candy’s no good,” I said. “It’s where mommy and I keep all of the spoiled candy.”
He cocks his head and looks at me with a distrusting expression, as if to say “I wasn’t born yesterday, old man.”
“You don’t believe me?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well let me prove it to you,” I said. “Here. Try one of these chocolate donuts.”
I hand him the stalest of the bunch. It feels like a chocolate-covered hockey puck. He grabs it, examines it for a second, then brings it to his mouth to take a bite. As he does so, he winces. He can’t even get his teeth through it to take a decent bite.
“See?” I said. “Stale. Hard as a rock.”
He removes the donut from his mouth and immediately tosses it in the trash. The he turns and walks away.
I guess the moral of this story is that sometimes parents have to lie to our children in order to maintain the wispy shred of sanity to which we cling.
*****DANGER: BLATANT WHORING AHEAD*****
Hey! Speaking of wispy shreds of sanity, there's a new entry up at KING OF THE CUBICLE.
If he persists, get some Baker's chocolate. One taste of that crap, and he'll believe the stale candy line, lock, stock, and barrel!
The pockets of your winter coats are great for hiding emergency chocolates.
We MUST protect our children from...ourselves. I'm with you brother, well, I was before my kids got all grown up. Now I'm the guy who's been there and done that.
A secret candy stash. Why did I NOT think of that??
I was just wandering around Tustin, and it was 80 degrees; therefore, I would avoid chocolates in the winter coat unless you like linty melted chocolate and heatstroke.
The stash goes in Mom and Dad's room! Sheesh, didn't you know?
Yeah! It goes behind the emergency package of Fleet brand enema and her Costco sized box of tampons.
They never look there!
(...and now I know why my twinkies taste april fresh.)
I need a secret place to hide goodies from my husband. He eats all my 1 point Weight Watchers cakes...like they are a flipping twinkie.
Time to move the stash to a new cabinet, because seriously? He will be back with a kitchen chair by the end of next week if you and you'd better move it before then or better yet, move it somewhere else and stash some OLD Halloween Candy up there that IS stale.
I hide mine in a cabinet that the kids know about, within reach, but they know better! They know not to touch the Dove chocolates, there stolen Easter candy and anything else I put in that cabinet. It's the one and only thing my kids actually don't go after, because they fear Mommy with no sugar!
Sue beat me to it. You can bet that Champ will be in there as soon as he possibly can. He may get TAFKABBF on lookout/poison-test/scapegoat duty as well. You know he has already turned her to the dark side.
And I am not sure about the tampon/pad box thing, cuz my son had alot of fun with those on occasion. I would put them somewhere they would NEVER go near. Swiffer box? Mop bucket? Anal Thermometer area? Basically anywhere work/unpleasant memories might be found. You want them to run when they see you near the cabinet.
oooh. the Baker's chocolate tip is so meanspirited. I love it.
I'm still working on my boy's easter basket. All that sugar is bad for him.
Oh yes, wehave one of those hiding spots too! Cept it's not really hidden but the kids know it's a no touch zone! Good thing you had those damn donuts up there or you'd be screwed!
I dreamt last night that you were on Oprah. I had no idea for what reason, but I'm thinking you were giving parenting tips.
I'm pretty sure my kids would eat the doughnuts, stale or not. Put chocolate in front of them and it's basically a reenactment of "Wild Kingdom"
You need to learn to decant.
I have fooled my kids into eating generic shit by pouring it into a much-used national brand box. (I don't do that with vodka, though. It really IS Absolut.)
My dad has one of those secret junk food cabinets too! And he stores Entenmann's donuts in there! But be warned - once your kids are tall enough to find it, they'll start secretly eating your stash. I've been doing it to my dad for years :) When we were teenagers, he upped his game by buying the generic crappy cookies for his stash because he knew none of us would touch them.
I have no secret stash...but I'm wondering if my mom has one. I think we'll be visiting grandma soon.
That is a parent confession if I have ever heard of one!
We have that cabinet too!
Ha! Classic. Quick thinking, too!
great save!!
And sometimes the kids rule! Have you seen the following yet? I almost pee'd myself!
http://sjl.funnyordie.com//v1/view_video.php?viewkey=3efbc24c7d2583be6925
[sigh]
If only I'd been able to come up with such a convincing lie when I got caught recently with my hand in the Grownup Chocolate Drawer. I'm afraid I told the truth. Chocolates for grownups. My son is obsessed with it now: "You like chocolate, don't you Mummy?" "How much do you like chocolate, Mummy?"