Earlier today: Cleaning out a box full of “why TF have I kept this shit around for so long?” last week, I came across a gift certificate for a one pound box of See’s Candies, given to me 26 years ago by a volunteer at the HIV Alliance in Eugene, Oregon (where I worked at the time).

Please advise:

Do I keep it? Or do I cash it in for chocolate?

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN: Chocolate.

Update:

Friends, thank you for your counsel. Oh and this is Shells, as she filled a classic white See’s box with FREE chocolate for me I told her all about Betty, the woman who gave me this gift certificate in 1997. Betty was in her 70s at the time and faithfully volunteered each week at the Acorn Center, a community space run by the HIV Alliance where anyone who was HIV + could come and hang out and share some home cooked meals, (my lucky job was cooking those!). I knew Betty for months before she told me that her late husband had died of AIDS.

God bless faithful volunteers like Betty who just keep showing up to be of service. We’re doomed without her kind.

God bless cheerful chocolate shop employees.

And God bless the folks here on Substack Notes who felt very strongly that I should get the damn candy.