Sweet & Sticky

When I was about 8 years old, I spent nearly every waking minute with my best friend, Lissy.  I don't remember meeting her.  We'd known each other since before memory, and I figure we fought so damn much we may as well have been sisters.

Collin told me to write about my best childhood memory, but rather than try to narrow it down, I just generalized to Lissy.  


She was tall and skinny and beautiful, and I thought she was everything I wanted to be.  

One thing Lissy didn't have going for her though: she was terrified of her dad.  She never said so, but she stopped speaking every time he entered the room.  The man was unpleasant and scary, to say the least.  If he arrived, it was only a matter of time before we were yelled at for one inane thing or another.  More often than not, yours truly was yelled at for eating the play-doh.  Why would they have those frikkin play-doh food factories, if they didn't want us to eat it?  Yeah, that's right, shaddup!

Here's one of the things I remember most about Lissy: she was COMPLETELY OBSESSED with the sticky part of envelopes.  She insisted it tasted like sugar, but you never get to lick them, so it's hard to notice in the short bit of time it takes to wet the envelope.  So...

One day during those long summer afternoons, when the grownups mysteriously didn't get the days off, we made ourselves some hot chocolate.  Lissy always put extra marshmallows in, ensuring the ultimate sugar rush.  *I think it's safe to say that my friendship with Lissy very nearly gave me the diabetes*  Then, since obviously you can't just have liquid and simply must have some solid food to go with it, we chose to partake in those sugary sweet envelopes.  

The large, mean man forgot to lock those tidbits away, so we promptly grabbed his new box of 150 envelopes and split them evenly, to be fair.  Commence the licking.

By the time her dad came home, Lissy and I both had cuts all over our tongues and this sweet almost rancid taste that didn't go away for days.  Unfortunately, the fun ended there, and I was told to go home.  

The next day, Liss told me she got in trouble, but didn't elucidate.  We never got the chance to extol on our shared experience.

To this day, I still get all happy when I get to lick the envelope.  My office-mates point out those envelope wetting things, with the sponge tips....but where's the fun?  I always think of Lissy; if she still enjoys the taste, or if the sweetness she once exclaimed over disappeared entirely.