Filled 'N' Gard

Once upon a time -- just a few days ago, in fact -- there was a delicate and dainty, most agreeable Young Lady running around to every grocery store in her local area. She was on a quest, for beets to pickle with onions and eggs, and it was a challenging quest to say the least. But she eventually succeeded, and along the way she picked up a few other things.

One of the items she accumulated in her travels was a can of chocolate-filled hard-candies -- like those her grandmother, and her great-aunts, and all of the Old Ladies she used to know, would set out in their homes at Christmastime. Like these:

(Only not these. But we'll have to make do with this image because said agreeable Young Lady was too fluster-headed to remember to take a picture of the can she bought, before Her Johnny put the can out with the recycling. And then all of a sudden -- poof! -- the can was gone):

This was some days ago, and when Agreeable and Delicate Young Lady eagerly showed Her Johnny what she'd found, he expressed his fond approval. But when she moved to open said can and put the candies in a dish, Her Johnny did protest.

"They'll just get all gross and stuck together," Her Johnny importuned. "At least wait until we're finished canning, so there won't be steam from giant, boiling pots floating throughout the house."

"Okay," Young Lady said. And then, when Her Johnny ducked into the bog, she did it anyway. He knew she would, and he emerged shaking his Irish head.

"So?" Young Lady said. "I wanted to, and so I did. You're not the boss of me. Besides, look how pretty the candies are in the bowl your sister gave us!"

His sister had indeed given them that bowl, as a wedding present after they eloped. Waterford cut crystal, it is, direct from the Old Country. And does it not look like it was made to hold these candies?

Well. Young Lady and Her Johnny went ahead and canned those pickled beets, and Young Lady enjoyed selecting candies from the crystal while they did. Some days went by thereafter, in which Young Lady all but forgot about the candies and the dish -- what with some excitement going on regarding hot chocolate and Christmas Peeps. But eventually, returning home from work one early Friday afternoon with a hankering for something sweet, she remembered, and reached out for, her old friends.

They were stuck fast. So fast, in fact, that our Young Lady could turn over the Waterford and not a single candy would drop out.

They are still pry-loose-able, but if Young Lady does not remove them soon she may find they'll yield to nothing short of Girlie Screwdriver -- an act which would be verboten by Her Johnny, and which Young Lady dast not disobey.

Why? Because this...

...if you turn it rightways and zoom in...

Reads:

Garda Championship
2005
Group Three Winner

So the moral of the story is: If you're going to recycle tournament trophies as wedding presents, make sure you're Irish when you do it. Because then it's hysterical and it makes Young Lady love the present even more. It also doesn't hurt if Young Lady once spanked said Gardaí's ass at snooker -- a game which, to that point, she had never played -- so she can pretend she won the trophy from him fair and square. Even if she suspects he really won it playing golf.

Oh, and also: If you are this Delicate and Agreeable Young Lady, listen to your husband when he tells you about candy. It is yet another thing about which he knows whereof he speaks.