Candy Troll

In law school, I worked at a law firm as a law clerk/receptionist. It was kind of a sham, but the short story is that I sat at the front desk of the firm. Now, on that front desk, was a candy bowl. On my first day, I was told that when the bowl got low, I should go and tell the office manager who would then check to see if it should be refilled and what type of candy should go into the bowl. I was told that when chocolate was put into the candy bowl, it disappeared very quickly and so they had to ration the chocolate pieces. How weird is that?

Except I soon realized why it was set up in this manner. The office had a candy troll. One of the ladies who worked in the office was a sad-sack. It was a lot like Milton in Office Space. I totally expected one day to come into the office and be told that we were moving this woman's desk to the storage closet and taking her off of payroll, but not telling her. There was very little that this woman could do right and she was a bit off her rocker. I once caught her screaming at the fax machine because it kept jamming. Which is frustrating, I realize, but she was screaming and swearing and when I asked her if I could help her she screamed at me that I could go and get her a margarita. And she wasn't joking. Ten minutes later she came up to my desk and asked me where the eff her margarita was.

Anyhow, this woman was obsessed with the candy dish. Whenever chocolate would appear in the dish, so would she. She'd come to my desk and start muttering under her breath "Chocolate, gottagetthechocolate, lookatallthischocolate, mmmmchocolate, ilovechocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate." It was incredibly uncomfortable. It was like the chocolate was hypnotizing her and she didn't care how crazy she sounded.

A week would go by and the office manager would put a few more pieces of chocolate into the candy bowl and there would come the candy troll to guzzle it up. The more chocolate would be in the bowl, the more the candy troll would take. No one else ever had a chance at the chocolate because she was always on top of it.

My point is that this whole giving up sweets for Lent thing is really getting to me. Today, at work, someone brought up jelly beans and I almost started crying. I'm starting to understand more and more where this candy troll was coming from. Because chocolate is awesome and the only thing better than chocolate is free chocolate. April 8th is a long ways away.