They’re my new favorite:
COCA-COLA TIC TACS
especially the ones that
just don’t come in
a plastic container
but the ones
that tell a story
and better still. . .
BRING A FRESH BREATH
I eat them by the handful
and I do so unembarrassingly. . .
I even had just popped a handful of them
when he came up to my window. . .
We don’t go to SWENSONS often
. . .maybe 4 or 5 times a year
and it brings you back to the late 50’s, early 60’s when you’d pull your car up, not to a drive-thru but an actual parking lot with your head-lights on so that some energetic waiter would come running to take your order. . .
That’s exactly what Alex did,
with more pep in his step than at loose kangaroo escaped from the zoo. . .
and that’s when he noticed my container of Tic Tac’s, not when I was mumbling our order through a mouthful of them. He said his favorite were the ORANGE ones (YUCKO–My least favorite They taste like ASPERGUM). When I asked him if he had ever tried THESE Tic Tac’s, he said he never even heard of them, at which point I reached into the back seat where I literally had a bag full of 8 other containers and I gave him one. It was like I had given him the key to a secret vault or as if he had never received a gift, at least one from a stranger, one he had come running furiously over to serve. He literally said,
“Uhhhhhh, I don’t know what to say!”
And I told him don’t say anything yet, because you may hate them, but at that very moment we both know we were no longer talking about a $3.49 container of Coca-Cola flavored mints. . .
When he brought our order back out with an ‘ahhh-shucks-kind-of-smile’ on his face we both realized that in the end he took much more than our order and got delivered more than what was ever expected. . .
That happened over two weeks ago and I knew right then I would be blogging the incident that already has been more a part of either of us than a quickly digested GALLEY BOY or the bad breath of an old sigh. . .
FRESH BREATH
comes unexpectedly most of the time
with one small kind act
and though it rarely costs little
it produces priceless moments
which kind of says:

If a single Tic Tac
can bring a Fresh Breath
I M A G I N E
what a handful can yield

D A R E
to find out. . .