As I was getting ready to walk out the door to travel to our conference, or as I like to call it “this veritable hell that masquerades as an educational opportunity”, KingofHearts handed me a stuffed-full paper bag. “So you have something to eat.” Apparently he heard that in Kansas City they were out of food.

In it was:

  • Two Grāpples (pronounced “grape-pels” - this is a new phenomenon in our local grocery store produce department, a grape-flavored apple. They are good, but the real reason we buy them is because the font on the label makes the "G" look like a "C" and therefore we call them “Crapples”.)
  • Two packages Mini Muffins
  • Four Twinkies
  • Package of sliced pepperoni
  • ½ pound Gouda Cheese
  • ½ pound Edam Cheese
  • ½ pound Habanero Cheese
  • Crackers
  • Crackers with Cheese

This is at once, sweet and sad. Sad, because I've been doing this job so long that he knows without even being here that if he does not hand me a bag of food to stash under the conference registration desk, I will not be given a chance to eat because conference attendees do not care about my need to have a sqare meal once in awhile; they only care that I am there to tell them what the fastest way to the ballroom is, thereby saving them that extra effort of looking at the pesky map of the hotel that I had printed on the back of the program I just handed them and pointed out for their convenience. (Was that a run on sentence? It's six am on day two and I'm already brain dead.)

Sweet because the fact that 87% of what was in the bag was cheese or a cheese-related product simply proves how well he knows me. The cheese products are currently chilling in my ice bucket, awaiting tomorrow’s rush of conference registrants. And they say love fades after nearly 10 years of marriage.