Candy - I feel like a kid. Sort of. I was just sitting here, staring off into space, vaguely staring across the room at this woman who was playing with these tinker-toys for molecular biology students. She chuckled as she threw together a model of an Ammonia molecule. NH₄. Is that ammonia? Or is that Methane? Asphalt? Mayonnaise?

She's messing with this model, happily adding more and more atoms, coming ever closer to buiding a nuclear bomb time machine on her table. As I start imagining some other nerd coming in to complement her on her creation and her blushing "Oh, this old thing," I take one last sip of my coffee, and find myself thinking "milk duds" over and over.

"Milk duds, milk duds, milk duds." There was something in the rhythm that I couldn't escape. Something about that creamy but dentally resistant chocolatey caramel rhythym that my mind grabbed out of nowhere and started repeating. I haven't had Milk Duds since at least Albuquerque. They're surprisingly hard to find outside the $12 a box multiplex version. I haven't had Reese's Pieces in months, either, but I started repeating that

Resse's Pieces. Resse's Pieces. Now we have rhythm and melody. I was sitting here, gazign out the window, now past this chemistry woman. Some people were walking their dogs, others stopping for the light at the corner, all of them wiping the sweat from their foreheads. "Got to be 75, 80 today," I heard an old looking sort of man in here say to someone who didn't answer. "Reese's Pieces. Milk Duds." I was staring.

I felt the left corner of my mouth lift, just a little bit more than the right. My eyes brightned. I remebered this. I was a kid again. I was happy, smiling deliriously all because of the mystery and wonder of candy. Chocolate candy. Peanut butter candy. Starburst, Jolly Rancher, Fun Dip. It was candy. Glorious, glorious candy.