the underwear drawer

candy thief

When I was working the night shifts last week, I noticed a strange thing. My candy stash was disappearing. Fueled by the unabashed candy worship of "Candy Freak," I had started to amass my own modest candy collection, consisting of a few bars of Milky Way Midnight (the dark chocolate version of the original), a king-sized Whachamacallit, and several large packs of Peanut Chews. I'm very impressionable that way. I would go the the convenience store and buy the candy during the day, stack it neatly in the pantry, and then go off to work at night. When I came home, the candy stash was either diminished or completely gone. The work of a candy thief.

I thought about leaving a little note in the pantry, a sort of "I KNOW YOU'RE STEALING MY CANDY, SO GET YOUR PAWS OFF!" warning, but tempered by a matrimonial sense of "my candy is your candy," I didn't say anything. I just kept buying more candy during the day and Joe kept eating it at night. By the end of the week, I was getting fed up. So when I came home from work last night (rather, early this morning, at 3am), I apprehended the suspect.

MICHELLE

(Walking into the bedroom at 3am)

Have you been eating all my candy?

JOE

(Waking from Stage 4 sleep)

Whu? Whuzza? Who has candy?

MICHELLE

You have candy, you candy thief! I keep buying candy and it keeps disappearing before I get a chance to eat it! It was you! Thief!

JOE

Not me, it was the dog! The dog ate the candy!

MICHELLE

Yes, the dog got up on the counter, opened the cupboard with her little paw, and unwrapped my Peanut Chews. How stupid of me not to see the evidence!

COOPER

(Looking up from dog bed wearily)

JOE

Yeah. That dog. She's crafty.

MICHELLE

You know, it's not like I mind you sharing my candy. Only you never buy any candy. You just pretend to be all healthy. The only kind of snacks that you buy are, like, unsalted pretzels and that stupid trail mix with a picture of a squirrel on the bag.

JOE

(Vaguely)

I buy good stuff sometimes.

MICHELLE

What, like that time you said you got those dried papaya cubes? "Nature's candy"? Well, no one like's nature's candy, including you! That's why you keep eating my artificial unholy corporate candy!

JOE

You mean the dog.

MICHELLE

If you want to eat my snacks, you have to start buying better snacks to replace them. Not that sack of raw almonds that you got last time. What the hell was that?

JOE

Nature's Corn Nuts?

We're going to a barbecue in Brooklyn tonight. I think it's hosted by some hippy-trippy types, and taking place in some warehouse. Friends of friends, in town from San Francisco. There had better be meat at this barbecue, or I'm leaving.

Currently watching: "The Bourne Supremacy." Well, not right now, but after the BBQ. Do you know how many people go up to Joe and tell him, "You look like Matt Damon"? A lot.