Next to the supermarket there’s a small delicatessen that has buckets full of small candies in the front. The candy ranges from chocolate and mints to gum and lollipops, and they cost anywhere from a nickel to a quarter apiece. A young boy (the child is a boy because this story reminds me of something similar that happened when I was much younger) was leaving the supermarket after having spent a big chunk of the afternoon shopping with his mother. On the way back to the car, he saw the buckets of candy and begged for a piece. After all, he felt that he deserved one after all the time he behaved in the supermarket. What growing boy wouldn’t feel the same way?

After browsing through all that was available to him, he decided upon the bright red, strawberry lollipop from the large bucket in the middle row. His mother had no problem parting with one quarter if it meant keeping her son happy until they got home, or wherever it was that they were going next. Unfortunately for the mother, “the best laid plans o’ mice and men go oft’ awry.”

As his mother took his hand to cross the lane to their parking spot, the boy ripped off the paper wrapper with pictures of dancing strawberries wearing sunglasses and baseball caps on it. Even though his mother had taught him that littering was bad for our planet, he threw the wrapper into the wind. As it fluttered away, the boy slipped the lollipop into his mouth and lodged it between his upper and lower pre-molars to get the strongest possible lick for the most flavor.

Standing at the rear of the car, the mother began loading the groceries into the trunk. The boy didn’t care about helping with the lifting; he was only interested in how swiftly he could “un-exist” the lollipop. After his mother finished, she shut the trunk and walked to side of the car. It was time to help her son into the child’s seat.

As she lifted her boy up-up-up, the lollipop was dislodged from his clenched teeth and flew from his mouth. Everything he had been working on for the past 10 minutes had been destroyed. All the intricate licking patterns, the reserved pockets of saliva for wetting the pop and the grinding motions on the pop’s edges to make it easier to hold were no more. The boy only fully realized what had happened in those few seconds he was lifted by his mother when he was plopped into the car.

The mother didn’t know what to do (considering it had already fallen to the ground). The five-second rule didn’t apply here since it had been at least ten seconds in her mind, and dirty cement trumps the possibility of picking up food. She didn’t want to go back to the store to buy another lollipop because they had places to go that afternoon. As the boy looked at his mother with tears rolling down his face, she smiled and promised to make it up to him next time. She sat in the driver’s seat, closed the doors, started the car and backed up. Then came a loud crunching sound that echoed from underneath the car.

As they drove away, the boy watched his red lollipop where it lay on the ground. It was supposed to have been his to finish. He had a relationship with this lollipop. He was supposed to have the enjoyment of the sweetness to its natural end. The car crushed all that. The boy stopped crying and the mother felt a little better. She said with affection that she would come back tomorrow and get him the whole bucket of pops. The boy realized it wouldn’t be the same, but he knew there would be other pops to enjoy to the end. He stared back at the red crystals as they drove off.