"So, uh, why do they call you Snuggle Bear?" I nervously asked the huge Mafioso that was sitting with me as I waited for the Don.
"Because I'll kill you if I don't like the way you look at me," he replied coolly, his face a mask of raging indifference to my existence.
"Oh," I said, looking anywhere but at him. "So, it's like irony." I smiled in a way that I prayed he would like.
"So one would assume," he said. He chewed on the end of his toothpick and reached up to scratch his giant neck with his giant index finger, muscles roiling under his expensive suit like deadly puppies under a terrified blanket.
As the minutes passed, my trepidation grew. Before long, I had decided that this visit was not such a good idea. "L-look," I stuttered nervously, picking up my cardboard box and setting it on my lap, "I don't have to bother the Don with this. I'm sure he's a busy man. Maybe I should go."
Snuggle Bear looked at me in silence for a moment, counting in his mind, I assumed, the many ways he could make me suffer. "Well, it's a free country," he said finally, "but I already told him you were here and he might be disappointed."
"Disappointed?" I asked, swallowing hard. I wanted to kick myself for coming in here. Someone had told me it would be a good way to move a lot of product quickly. What was I thinking? Did I really want to be a supplier for the mob? "Well, I can just wait to see him then. I wouldn't want to disappoint him."
"I think that's a good decision," he said. "He loves the Thin Mints, you know? Me? I prefer them coconut ones, but he love the Thin Mints. He's probably all excited by now."
"Thin Mints?" I asked, glancing down at the box and beginning to sweat.
"Yeah," he responded. Sensing something in my posture, he cocked an eyebrow and said, "You do have Thin Mints, yeah?"
"One box," I whispered, closing my eyes as my lip started to quiver.
Snuggle Bear let out a long, low whistle and shook his head in pity.
"It's a very popular cookie," I tried to say, but my voice wouldn't come out.
"Look," he said, standing to take a wad of cash out of his pocket and pull off a five, "gimme that one box and get the hell outta here while you still can."
I jumped to my feet and tore open the cardboard flaps, grabbing the last green Thin Mints box from one side. I pulled out a box of the Caramel Delights as well. I held them both out to the big guy, my arm shaking. "My treat," I said, smiling frantically.
"Hey, thanks!" He smiled, took the boxes from me and placed the five neatly back into the wad of bills as I ran down the hallway toward the door.
When I got back to the car Wendy, my eight-year-old daughter, was pissed. "You GAVE away TWO boxes!" she screamed.
"I had to, sweetie." I told her the whole story as I drove away as quickly as I could.
"We have six whole boxes of Thin Mints at the house!" she exclaimed.
"Honey, I don't think they would have waited."
She stewed for a minute in silence. "We're going back," she said finally.
"Wendy, I don't think that's a good idea."
"We're going back," she said. I could tell she was serious. There would be no reasoning with her.
"But sweetie," I whined, my voice barely a whisper, "Snuggle Bear will kill me."
"Don't be dramatic," she said, and she turned and stared out the passenger window. The conversation was over. I was a dead man.
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Later. Love.
P. S. - Aphter: 47. Thanks for stopping by.
