I am spending this Election Night eating Swedish Fish for the first time.

Photo by Roseanna Smith on Unsplash

I’m supposed to be studying to be a developer right now. I have an assignment due manana. I’ve got my MySQL Workbench up, but I stopped querying 45 minutes ago. I am usually laser focused but I admit that my mind is on other things despite the promises I made to myself at 6:15 am when I woke up today. I started a free trial of YouTube Premium so I could binge watch Hotel Hell and Kitchen Nightmares all day in order to not have to see any ads to interrupt any attempt at ensconcing oneself in oblivious, YouTube white noise. Superfluous entertainment is what I needed to quiet my anxieties today. I do not want to admit to the things and worries by giving them a name .Those things that shall not be named got shout-outs from me every day for the last few years. Today, for a change, they will remain nameless.

I just went downstairs, washed out my Instant Pot from the meal I made, let the dog out and was going back upstairs when I noticed the leftover bowl of Halloween candy. You know — all the non-chocolate stuff that nobody really wants. The contents of the bowl is 50% comprised of Swedish Fish. Then it hit me that I’d made it to past the age of 35 and have never eaten a Swedish Fish. I try to avoid processed sugar and candy, but it’s a once in a lifetime day today (if we’re lucky). Today I’m going to eat this candy with the strange name. Caution to the wind.

This is the type of living dangerously that I actually want to tackle. I tired of living on the end of my seat so for today, I’m going full head in sand mode and tackling only easy challenges. I bypassed the Starburst and put the pack of Swedish Fish in my sweatpants pocket. I get upstairs and tear open the package. It smells good, but it only looks aiight. I put it in my mouth. As a gummy bear and salt-water taffy lover and aficionado, I do not exactly know what I am eating right now. It’s tangy and kind of toothy at first, but then it gloriously dissolves in my mouth. It’s like the last part of the mouth feel when creme brulee is coating your tongue at the end. Like that almost. Overall a very nice finish. As a former chef, I love a nice finish. So, results are in and I low-key like it. Okay, I high-key like it because I went and got a second package.

As I said, I really should be staying away from processed sugars and candy, but it’s Election Night and I think we all are living dangerously whether we know it or not. I’m going to cap the day off by re-watching the Amy’s Baking Company episode for the third time today. Maybe my foray at this late life stage into Swedish Fish will be a good metaphor for this Election night in that at the end, we, too, will have a glorious finish.

One hopes.