How To Eat Plain M&M's

Hi ya'll.  I have been pretty busy this past week helping to bring a new Baby Sneaks into the world.  His 'sleep-all-day/poop-puke-and-party-all-night' attitude reminds me of my college days and he appears to be a chip off the old block.  The first two songs he heard on the radio on the car ride home from the hospital:  Zeppelin's 'Ramble On' and then AC/DC's 'Its A Long Way To The Top If You Want To Rock And Roll'...absolutely perfect...I could not have scripted it better myself.

Anyways, the car ride home with my wife and two kids got me thinking about all the future car rides/vacations we will be taking, and then that got me reminiscing about all the family vacations me and my 2 sisters and parents took back in the day.  At least once or twice a year Mom and Dad would load us kids and piles of luggage all up in the station wagon for a trip from our house in upstate New York to visit relatives in Minneapolis or St. Louis or Wisconsin or Savannah.  Long, hot, cramped trips spent fighting with my sisters over who crossed the imaginary line dividing our precious space in the back seat, or who got to ride in the way-back and for how long...but one way my mom tried to get us to behave was the promise of treats, or more specifically, small bags of plain M&M's.

When we'd finally get it together long enough for Mom to give up the goods and hand over our 3 bags of M&M's, it was like Christmas and we would happily count them, sort them by colors, trade them...and then finally eat them.  A lot of miles, a lot of bags, and a lot of time eating our M&M's.  Well after years of hands on research and experimentation, I discovered that there are 2 ways to eat them properly.  As I made my way through a bag then, and still to this day, I alternate between the two methods.  I either:

A)   Stick 2 or 3 M&M’s in my mouth and just instantly start chewing them really fast and enjoy the immediate gratification of the succulent chocolate contrasted with the crunchy hard shell for a texture-high.

Or,

B)   I stick 2 M&M’s in the back side of my mouth between my cheek and gum and pretend they’re not there…sometimes upper, sometimes lower.  Then I just go about my business and fool myself into forgetting all about them…la, la, la…nothing to see here.  Then all of a sudden after a few minutes:  "Voila!”  I have a luscious, warm, liquid chocolate pocket encapsulated by an extremely soft, thin, leathery skin…almost like I imagine the skin of a soft-shelled turtle protecting it’s precious partner inside.  Then I apply just a slight pressure on the two jewels now trapped between the roof of my mouth and tongue and the delicious treasure comes oozing out, rewarding me handsomely for my patience by spreading out and coating the inside of my mouth with warm chocolate lava…yum.