They call them Special for a reaon, you know ...

My parents brought a bag of those miniature Hershey's candy bars with them when they came to pick me up on Saturday. Mutti asked me if I wanted some, but I didn't. By the time I thought I'd like a little candy, I noticed that there were only four left, two regular Hershey's and two Krackel. I took one of the regular ones, which is what I'd really wanted anyway, but that got me to thinking about the hierarchy of chocolate.

The dark chocolate always goes first. My mom and I wage informal war over this; we both like those Special Darks so much. (Plus, there never seem to be as many of those ... but that may just be because they seem to disappear so fast.) Next are the Mr. Goodbars; these used to be my favorite before I learned the joys of dark chocolate, but I still find the peanut/chocolate combination quite pleasing (which, Jenn, is not the same as "pleasant"!). Then I suppose would be the milk chocolate, with the rice crispy Krackels lagging behind. They're the unloved, the pariahs, the untouchable of assorted candy miniatures in my family.

But I remember being with some friends and a bag of Hershey's assorted miniatures. By habit I grabbed all the dark chocolate I could; I was surprised at how easy this was. Then I realized that I didn't have competition from my mom, and commented on this. One of my friends (I'd say who, but I can't remember who else is involved in this story) said that the dark chocolate's always the last to go for his/her family; they like the crispy-rice ones best. So I had to point of the irony of that; as I previously stated, those are least popular in my family.

I know it's dumb and trivial, but I guess it never occurred to me that other people view candy bars so differently ... maybe that's why they say college is a mind-broadening experience.

I don't see any gold, though ...

My best friend from kindergarten until third grade (when she started being homeschooled and I rarely saw her any more) was a couple weeks younger than me; her birthday was near the beginning of January whereas mine is at the end of December.

When we were in first grade or so, I remembered her telling me her birthday was special because it was her golden birthday. I asked her what that meant and she said it meant that she was turning seven on January seventh.

I was jealous; I got no such honor, no special presents. I figured that, since my golden birthday would thus be my twenty-second, that was impossibly far away and by then I'd be so old I wouldn't care about such things any more. I knew it was true. Ever since then, I've been resigned to my fate.

Anticlimatic though it may be, this was better than my birthday last year, which I spent at my uncle's birthday party, which consisted mostly of his wife's family members and their screaming kids running around. It was also better than the year before, when Mom refused to let me see Fellowship of the Ring because it was my birthday and that meant family. So she cleaned the house, my brother played computer games, my dad watched TV, and I think I read a book or something. Quality time has never been our forte.

Anyway, today was quiet but good. My mom did take me to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants (the Lakeside, not that anybody who reads this besides ivana_duboise will know what I'm talking about), and made me a very nice dinner tonight. There was cake, too, but I made that. I love my mom's chocolate cake. It was even a layer cake. And I got a present; they bought me a sweater. It was a nice birthday.