Chocolate and Physics

I'm not really a chocolate person. I mean, I'll eat it, and once in a great while I'll crave it (but usually in connection with butter toffee). But for some reason, I had a few of those Andes mints in my purse. I think they were from the Olive Garden, which would mean they've been in my purse for many months (like maybe since November - ick). Because, you know, I don't eat them.

And here's the physics part: If one places a foil-wrapped chocolate confection in a warm place, say a car, for several hours, one may find one's foil-wrapped chocolates pressed into whatever solid object rested near them.

Such as my compulsive pile of pens.

In my purse are at least 6 pens, not counting the orange highlighter (with sticky flags - joy of my heart), pencil, and lipliner (Wet-n-Wild #666 - dont' read anything into the number; it's only the greatest 99-cent beauty product in the free world). You never know when you'll need to write something down, or highlight something, or change the clock in the minivan, or rediscover your sexy lips. A girl needs to be prepared.

I went to a small, chummy meeting of writers today to discuss marketing strategy and a possible teen book club. When I went after my favorite green-inked pen, it took a tug to dislodge it from the side pocket in my purse. Hm, says I. How odd, and sort of gross. When I clicked it to get the inky part note-taking-ready, it was covered in a very yucky small blob of re-hardened once-Andes-mint. Sort of brownish-green and (okay, writer in me is being clubbed by mother in me, because no matter how many good descriptions there are for this yuckiness, none matches the simplicity of just laying it out like it is) looking like something that should be contained in a diaper.

Eww.

I'm a big girl and managed to wipe it off and laugh it off. Fellow author and mama Ally Condie surely noticed the resemblance to pooh, but managed to keep her disgust hidden.

Best part? The moment author friend Lisa Mangum (The Hourglass Door) borrowed the pen to jot down some brilliance and barely took a second glance at the smear of brown lodged there.

Note to self: Need to stop stockpiling food I'm not likely to ever, ever eat - especially the kind that melts.