tic tac® candies and me

So, me and tic tac® candies (correction: mints) have an interesting relationship.

Namely, I devour them en masse...I mean, for God's sake, I just tipped the container back and have six of them in my mouth now...wait, no...make that five of them ;)

Anyway, over my life I've run into what I thought were all of the various flavors: peppermint (white), spearmint (green), cinnamon (red), orange (orange). I like most of them, however I hold a special place in my heart for the orange ones...I can put away an entire container (37 mints) at one time with the orange ones. I just open my maw, pop open the container and start shaking...it's truly sick. The peppermint ones are ok, as are the cinnamon ones. The spearmint ones can be a little painful, what with my method of ingestion (see above).

Recently the snack fund proprietor's at my office provided two types I hadn't seen before: wintergreen (light green) and citrus twist (odd yellow and green).

The wintergreen ones are tolerable...a little like their other green brother. A little intense in large groups...say 5 or more, but find in smaller groups.

However, the citrus twist ones are horrific. I figured, "Hey, I like Sprite® and other lemon-lime stuff...these should be ok." Uh...no...not even close. I don't know who came up with the flavor for these, but they taste kind of like the lemon fresh Clorox® wipes smell...not good...not good at all.

Anyway...if you haven't tried the citrus twist ones yet...save yourself the trouble and stick to the orange ones...on second thought, git yer hands off my orange ones. And if you have tried them and like them...I'm sorry and you have nothing to fear from me...I'll stick with the orange ones.

Again...did I mention sickness...six of them this time :)

Ammonia Factories

I wonder at what point I will stop listening when my wife and kids when they say that they will take care of new pets.

I am the sole cleaning service for a pair of lovely "Ammonia Factories"; which most of you would probably call guinea pigs or cavies. I refer to them as "Ammonia Factories" due to the lovely sickening aroma they exude. As the sole cleaning provider, I get to wallow in their by-products on a weekly basis; and I'm getting sick of it. I'm fairly certain that my wife who will certainly complain about the smell, would suffer through it until we all passed out due to ammonia fumes, rather than stoop to cleaning the cage. I can drop all of the hints I want and they will just sit and stew before she ever cleans the cage.

The fish are no different. We have a goldfish that we rescued when someone abandoned it and 2 betta's (who are funny to watch when you pull the little shade away and they start puffing). Have you ever smelled a betta bowl on cleaning day? Holy smurf noses! The smell sticks to your hands for a hour or more.

I wonder how hard it would be to explain that they got away while I was cleaning their cage. Ok, not really...I wouldn't be able to tolerate the tears and crying from the children. Far be it from me, a mere mammal and fish maid, to incur pain and suffering on my younglings.