I was visiting African Lion Safari, a amusement park near Toronto that you drive through in your car and see wild animals, with Chris and his family. We had free passes because his sister had a summer job there.

When we were finished looking at the monkey and lions and zebras and predator birds and elephants (boring) and the macaws, we went to ye olde gift shoppes. And I saw a wonderful thing.

There was a rack of four foot long tubes, about an inch or an inch in a half in diameter each, filled with Runts (also jelly beans, but those didn't interest me).

Enormous tubes! Of candy!

There were two varieties of Runts, the classics with the strawberries and heart-shaped orange ones and bananas (v. important), but there was also a different variety that I had never seen before with watermelons and purple round ones. So I ran to get Chris and asked him which one he liked.

Chris chose the classic. I was more interested in the new varieties. So I picked up both and took his sister to the cash register with me to use her employee discount.

While in line I said to Chris's sister, "The best thing about being an adult is that if you want to buy multiple four-foot long tubes of candy, then you just go ahead and do it." I'm pretty sure that the children in line heard me--I hope that they internalized what I said and work hard to grow up and educate themselves and get a good job so that they too can buy four-foot long tubes of candy. It's nice to think that I might make a difference in the world.

Of course then it was kind of embarrassing because it isn't only children who stare at you when you are walking around with four feet of candy. Adults to do.

But everything seemed to be going well, we weren't mugged by sugar-hungry crowds, until Chris and I were almost home on the subway when a small child began to stare at Chris's candy with even more than usual ferocity. I was trying to hide my tube behind my back, but Chris isn't as nice as me. He grinned unpleasantly at the small child, shook the candy around a little, ostentatiously placed it a little further from his body and looked smug. So the kid grabbed her mother's hand, pointed, and started whispering to her.

The mother shook her head.

The child burst into tears.

The subway came and Chris went to follow them into the subway car until I pulled him into the next door down.

He, of course, didn't understand why I insisted on ruining his fun.