Tuesday, November 6, 2007

October 31 2007-Halloween blogging


Happy Halloween, everyone. Have a cookie!
This was yesterday's project. I make these cookies for halloween, every year. Some we eat, some we give out to those kids in the neighborhood who know us, and therefore trust us enough to eat home made goodies, and some get wrapped up and given to the teachers at the high school.
But, they also remind me of one of the funnier stories from my years of working in a gym. It was an independently owned gym, not a part of a chain or franchise, and like at least one other family owned business that I had worked for, the owner seemed to think that the employees were privileged to work for him, and should feel an appropriate sense of gratitude. This seemed to extend to the idea that the employees should feed the owner.
But...unlike the other employers with this attitude, this particular man was a Born Again Fundie. (He probably wouldn't have even hired me, except that it happened while he was away.) Women in the weight room bothered him. Women smarter than him bothered him. Women who argued back (especially when they were physically stronger than he) really bothered him. Women who refused to "accept their place" (never mind that it was his mother in law who gave him the money to buy the gym) really really bothered him. I bothered him, but my department was highly profitable when I ran it.
Anyway...comes Halloween, and I bring a plate of these cookies to work with me, to share with my co-workers. Mostly, my co-workers take cookies to bring home to children, although the office workers ooh and aah over them and eat them. I see the owner of the club, standing in a doorway, talking to someone in their office. I walked up with my plate of cookies and said "Dick, would you like a cookie?" and without turning around, he reached behind him and took a couple of cookies, and had one in his mouth before he actually looked at what they were.
I only wish that I had had a camera with me. I could plainly see in his face, the warring emotions-the desire to eat the cookies, with the fear that he would be damned or cursed for eating them. He ate the cookies. But he was marked-the icing dyes your tongue!
Oh, but the look on his face! The desire, the fear! Isn't that what Halloween is about?

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