Sweet Tooth

It’s the time of year for me to indulge in my favorite candy – cough drops. Ricolla makes the ones that ring my chimes, and I’m not too fussy about the flavor. When I was a child, it was Ludens, or something I remember as Dr. Smith’s, but when I lived on the coast, the only brand in the house was Fisherman’s Friend.

A girlfriend of mine insisted that most cough drops were primarily sugar, and our consumption was mainly to satisfy our sweet tooth without the guilt associated with eating our way rapidly through boxes of candy ( ummmm – nut clusters, malt balls, truffles!).

I secretly admitted she was right but refused to agree with her through perversity. She had a habit of saying true things in a nasty manner. She was a believer in not ” candy coating” the truth. I counter-attacked by pointing out that she derived pleasure from cruelly pointing out the obvious in a tactless manner. As you can guess, things went downhill in the relationship after that. It was both a hard truth to hear, and put in the cruelest fashion.

Then I found myself satisfying my sweet tooth more and more because I was trying to quit smoking and was using cough drops to help with the cravings. things got more complicated as I got more and more cranky with withdrawal.

Sometimes, things happen in clusters: the relationship hit the rocks for about three big reasons -cough drops being only one. I got a brand new job, and I managed to quit smoking.

Until this prompt stirred up the muck of my memory, I had forgotten how cough drops, my favorite sweet, were associated with quitting smoking and that relationship.