M&Ms

Here's a Halloween story, of sorts, for you. Thought you might get a kick out of it.


There's a dance studio here in Houston that's pretty good-sized, several rooms, lots of classes each year, dances, sponsored cruises, etc. Well, they've got their annual Halloween party coming up and I just read in their newsletter a story from a Halloween party ten years ago that I'm going to share with you.

It seems that they go all out for their 'Haunted House' with ghoulish creatures of every sort, Dracula in a coffin, the scene from Psycho, scary music, and all in very darkened rooms with hanging black drapes and many twists and turns. Takes hours to set it all up and sounds like a whole lot of fun.


Ten years ago a couple came dressed as M&Ms. Appropriately, she was carrying a little basket full of M&Ms. As they were walking through the blackened maze, he was quite taken with a ghoul and remarked how lifelike it was. She laughed and moved forward to give it a little poke. When the ghoul stepped toward her and made threatening sounds, the basket of M&Ms went flying and her screams could be heard all the way out to the street! Turns out the ghoul was one of the dance guests and would, from time to time, just stand quietly in a corner to see if he'd get a taker. He did, big time!


In order for dance classes to be held the next day, takedown and cleanup is scheduled the morning after the big party. The Maze has to be dismantled, and although the drapes come down a lot faster than they go up, it still requires two hours of four people working together to finish the job.

(I'm going to switch to the first person here because the rest of this story is best told by the person who experienced it, one of the cleanup crew.)


"As I took down the curtains, I couldn't keep my eyes off those M&Ms laying on the floor. The longer I worked, the more my desire grew. Pretty soon I was certain they were talking to me.

We know you want to eat us. We taste so good and you are so hungry! mmmmmmm

Yeah, yeah, I know they had millions of germs on them blah blah blah. Let me tell you something -- if you get hungry enough, those germ arguments lose a lot of their power! I fought the urge, but the charms of the M&Ms continued to weaken my resistance. Their siren call grew louder and louder. Finally I had to have one. Making sure that no one was looking, I reached down and grabbed one off the floor.

I ate it! That's when I discovered it had a peanut inside!!

Uh oh! That did it!! Those M&Ms had nuts in them. Now I was completely helpless.

You know how you spill something in the kitchen and you call the dog to come eat it up? Well, that was me. My resistance caved in and I became an M&M tramp. I spent the rest of the morning carefully ridding the floor of all M&Ms by eating them. Yum!!!

What a marvelous cleaning technique!! I had so much fun I even took a picture of them. Such wonderful memories. By the way, for all you germ experts, please note that ten years later I am still alive and doing fine. So put that in your bonnet and figure it out!"