Lollipop. Lollipop, Oh Lolly!

We finally got our first shipment of candy in the toy store towards the end of December. Most of it arrived just before the big snow hit. We bought it through a local lady who used to have a candy store here in town and now wants to do some distributing for the companies she became familiar with. She brought over three gumball machines, one of which is about five feet tall. So cool. She can't find the keys to it though, and the gumballs in it are about as hard as the jawbreakers in the other machine with no way of getting them out to replace them with fresh gumballs (except quarters of course, but I'm afraid we do not have the keys to empty the coin drop either). A little bit of a tease. They look spectacular, one inch spheres of color promising sweet fruity pleasure, but alas, we have out of order signs on them as of yet.
If you put the lollipops we got in on a scale, they would probably weigh about as much as I do...or about as much as I did before the candy counter was stocked ;-) I love to look at them arranged on the counter. I have stuck them down in clear glass vases of what looks like sugar, but is actually salt (no caking issues, and easier clean up if anyone ever knocks it over). Vase after vase of immediate gratification on a stick. We have bagged candies of course, gummies, chocolates, licorice, old fashioned Kits, Sugar Daddy's, Licorice Pipes, Wax lips, etc. But it's the bright lollie's and eye popping colors of those gumballs that really makes my heart happy. That's the sex appeal I was looking for. Whimsy, promise, sublime succulence. True, I do feel a little like a crack peddler every time I hear a little voice beg, plead, and cajole a parent for a sweet little something. I know there is probably a special place in hell for people like me. But I'm choosing to believe that what I'm really doing is creating mythical memories of a place of joy and fantasy. The child's wonderland where everything you ever wanted was right there for the taking...until Mommy said "No!"