perfidy

Last Sunday, the family unit was up in Hagerstown, MD where Mrs. Buckethead's band was playing a festival at a city park in that fair burgh. The weather was perfect, an excellent night for listening to bluegrass in thte great outdoors. And I was completely unprepared for the deeply emotional experience I was soon to undergo.

From my youngest days, my favorite candy (and I am largely lacking a sweet tooth, confections I actually liked were rare) was the super rope. Three feet of red (super ropes would never discriminate against any particular red fruit) licorice goodness, available at most gas stations in Northeastern Ohio. Up until about five years ago, I took the super rope for granted. Super ropes will always be there for me, I thought. Months would go by where I didn't even think of them, only to catch a glimpse of slender, plastic wrapped fruity delights hanging from the corner of an end cap at the Speedway. Bliss regained! The longer they had lingered in the back of the station, the better they got. Some might call a five year old super rope stale, but to me it was perfection. Oenophiles might have some inkling of my transports of ecstacy drinking a Chateau Rothschild '52, but somehow I doubt that even they could appreciate the subtle evolution of flavor in a super rope over years of careful aging.

Then, super ropes disappeared. I wasn't even aware of their passing, so blase was I. But one day I looked for a super rope, and none were to be found. Speedways, BP, Exxon, Texaco, Sunoco, Shell all barren. Candy stores had no idea of what I wanted. I grieved, but moved on. I moved to Northern Virginia - and made a desultory effort to find my lost love in the gas stations of the Commonwealth, but to no avail. Even Google, that finder of the unfindable, was no help. Typing "super ropes" into the magic box yielded no matches.

Sir John of the Nine Teeth was feeling peckish and uninterested in mommy's singing, so I wandered over to the park's concession stand. Bought a soft pretzel and a soda. And there, off to the side in an unassuming display, a box full of super ropes. I doubted the evidence of my senses. My world view rocked, I nearly fell to the ground in thanksgiving for this unsought boon.

I bought twenty of them. And now, I have a link that will allow me to purchase more super ropes through the magic of the interweb whenever I so desire.