The Drumstick Squashie Affair

Easter Sunday morning, 2022. A time to celebrate whatever it is you choose to celebrate, be it resurrection, the awakening of nature, or sweeties and chocolate.

For today’s missive, if it’s all the same to you, I shall go the ‘Sweeties and Chocolate’ route. Forgive me Mother Nature, forgive me Risen Christ, you are both great too. This post will also be a kind of a confessional, so we’re not entirely without Catholic input here.

The first thing to know is that I love sweeties and chocolate. “Don’t worry, Ken,” I hear you cry, “practically everybody loves sweeties and chocolate, you are not alone.” Yes, that’s exceedingly kind and I appreciate the sentiment, even though I made it up myself, but it’s not that simple. You may correctly assert that you love sweeties and chocolate and I will not doubt you nor cast aspersions on your high regard for said confections. Just be assured of one thing, gentle reader, however much you love ‘em, I love ‘em more.

One effect of my great love of all things sugary is that it is awfully hard to keep anything sweet in the house. As the evening draws in and some late-night telly beckons, I will seek out and find whatever sweets may be hidden and I will eat them. Nothing is safe. If this sounds like concerning behaviour, yes, good, be concerned, be very concerned. A little for my health, a lot for my waistline, but primarily because, if you have sweeties in the house, I am coming for them. I am the Liam Neeson of snuffling out sweets, I have a unique set of talents. I will find them and I will kill them.

In recent years, it’s my younger son, Sam, who has suffered most from my sweetie-purloining ways. When it became clear that Sam had a rather serious nut allergy, he could no longer get the customary Cadbury selection box as part of his Christmas morning haul. So Patricia started to create his own custom-made selection box in a shoe box wrapped in festive paper. There were all kinds of goodies in there and it turned out to be a vastly superior pressie to a silly old shop-bought selection box. It’s nice to have a little win sometimes.

But Sam was, and is, a slow consumer of sweets and chocolate, unlike his dear old dad. A square of chocolate here, a single jelly there… the darned selection box lasted for ever. And on those arid evenings when there wasn’t a sugary thing in the house, the selection shoe box called from Sam’s room like a tawny siren on the jagged rocks. “Come to meeee, Kenneth, come to meeeee.” But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. This was the lad’s Christmas pressie and, yes, it was now March and he was hundreds of miles away in college and he didn’t want what was left in there anyway… but I couldn’t and I didn’t.

There came a time, and it took a bloody long time to come, when there was very little left in the box and the box was de-commissioned and the remaining product put out to sit on Sam’s desk. In truth, there was only one thing left in the box. A pack of Drumstick Squashies.

Drumstick Squashies are among the least desirable of all the sweets. Doubtless included in the shoe box as a reference to Sam’s percussive talent, rather than as a genuine treat. They are the last thing from the Christmas box, they lie on Sam’s desk unwanted and unloved. Late at night, I go into the room and stare at the pink packet. No, I can’t open them. I can’t.

Every story needs a crisis and the crunch came here when Sam arrived home for a nice weekend and then went back again. All good, you might think. No, far from it. Sam had opened the packet of Drumstick Squashies and had one or two and left them there. Now the packet was open, Drumstick Squashies spilling out alluringly onto the desk.

I’ll have one. Nobody will know. I had one. It was horrible. So I had another. And another. That was enough. Stop now. Stop.

I pushed the empty packet down the bottom of the bin. Guilty but sugared-up.

At the next supermarket shop, I bought a replacement packet of Drumstick Squashies and left them on the desk. One evening, quite late, as I was standing at the desk, I realised that this was no good, no good at all. This new packet of Drumstick Squashies were sealed shut. The previous pack had been opened. I opened the pack. Since Sam had eaten a few of the previous pack, for complete authenticity, I would do the same. Just one or two, to complete the effect.

I pushed the empty packet down the bottom of the bin.

I hate Drumstick Squashies. They aren’t detestable or anything like that. They’re just a bit… joyless. Of all the sweets in the world, they are not even in the top hundred. Not even close. But I am in a cycle now. I buy a pack to replace the pack I ate. Suddenly there is nothing else in the house with sugar in it. I eat a few. I eat them all. I buy a new pack.

There is a new pack on Sam’s desk as I write this. There is an empty pack on mine. I inadvertently bought Rhubarb and Custard flavour instead of the originals so that just wouldn’t do. They were truly horrible, particularly the last few.

The writing of this post will be the end of this horrific cycle. I will confess to my son, throw myself on his mercy, beg his forgiveness. No more Drumstick Squashies. No more.

Happy Easter. I hope you get some chocolate.

One small thing. If you do, please don’t leave it lying around.