I feel virtuous, yet oddly bereft

We have a big candy bowl here at work, and a hard-working, diligent woman who keeps it well-stocked (among her thousands of other responsibilities). There's a small jar next to it where I don't remember often enough to leave her a dollar or two when I come by to take yet another miniature Hershey's bar, or a caramel, or a little colorful square fruity wedge.

Today, though, I have more than made up for my thefts of the past.

Yes, I brought her our leftover Halloween candy. You have no idea how hard this was for me. Doug bought the candy, and, damn him, he bought really good stuff--little Snickers bars, each one a mere and tidy one million calories; little Three Musketeers (they're all air, right? hardly any calories at all?) and little Milky Ways; tootsie rolls; tootsie pops; and after that I didn't look very close because the proximity was giving me candy swoon.

We got about 50 or 75 goblins on Halloween night--no spectacular costumes, but I noticed that everyone was wearing those glow-in-the-dark plastic bangle bracelets, and I finally asked why. Turns out one of the big houses by the lake was giving them out instead of candy. Smart. Must be a dentist who lives there.

But 50 or 75 goblins wasn't enough to empty our candy bowl. I should have been giving them candy by the fistful instead of just a couple of pieces each. (But you just never know, do you?)

So yesterday I poured all the leftover candy into a giant ziploc bag and left it on Doug's briefcase. What's this doing here? he said.

It's for you to take to work.

But he dashed off to catch his bus and left the candy behind, which gave me another chance. Keep it? Or give it? I stuffed it into my carryall bag and worried about it the whole way to work.

I could give her everything except the Three Musketeers... I plotted. But that soon became everything except the Three Musketeers and the Snickers.... and the Milky Ways....and anything else that has chocolate in it....

In the end I trotted over and handed Christine the bag the minute I walked in the door. Oh, you are so nice! she said. This will help a lot!

I slung back to my desk feeling virtuous yet bereft. Now all I have to do is keep myself from swinging by her candy jar for the next, oh, three weeks or so.