I work in a candy store. I made cotton candy today for the first time. Making cotton candy is fun. You chase clouds of sugar with a paper cone until you snag one, and then you roll the cone with a flick of the wrist, wrapping the cloud around the cone until it grows to unearthly proportions! You put your arm in the opening to do this. The plastic back prevents the cotton candy from flying in all directions, but the giant opening does nothing to prevent it from flying in your face.
As a result of this, what you may not realise beforehand, as I did not, is the amount of cotton candy that is going to collect on your arms, eyelashes, sleeves, glasses, and hair… and the amount of brightly coloured sugar that is actually going up your nose. I looked in the mirror halfway through the process, and noticed that my eyelashes were blue. A co-worker thought I had dyed my hair blue. So you get the point… I was blue and fuzzy and delicious.
After making all the cotton candy today, I went into the back room, which is our combination office and bathroom, to blow my nose. What did I see? Bright neon blue snots, which I could only assume were raspberry flavoured. I did not wish to sample, as that is not my style.
And now I am sneezing!
Yes indeed, this is a short story, for it needs no embellishment. The moral of the story is that if you want to have bright, pretty boogers, you need to make some cotton candy.
In high school, I had a job at a large indoor amusement park, and a pal did the cotton candy machine regularly. We made fun of him for having blue and pink eyelashes, and his response was always the same:
I love cotton candy, but I can imagine how incredibly sticky you must get after working the machine.
My favorite cotton candy story - it was the year that the Sacramento Kings changed uniform colors from blue/white to purple/black. They decided to make purple and black cotton candy in the concession stand. We ate it, of course, and had black mouth disease for the rest of the game. Awesome!
Making cotton candy is, in my opinion, the best job in the store.
Purple and black cotton candy? That sounds intense! I’d like to have seen that. How did it taste?
Also, on the cotton candy flavouring, there was a list of available flavours… vanilla, strawberry, banana (bleah!), pina colada (bleah again!) and… MINT. Mint cotton candy? That sounds crazy.
The boogers aren’t the colour of cotton candy… they’re the colour of wet cotton candy. Bright. Fun. I will be selling them under the brand name of rinni runnis.
