20090802

Tic Tacs

I have a secret.

It will be surprising to some people and not so much of one to others. Here goes....

I am an addict.

Now you may be thinking, "this mild mannered, slightly silly woman is an ADDICT? No way". You may doubt my claim but I am here to say that it is true and it impacts my life. I have a serious addiction to dark green tic tacs. I like the hard stuff, not your tamer gateway light green tic tacs that anyone could enjoy.

The problem with my addiction is that since not everyone finds the call of the spearmint irresistible the way I do these little beauties are increasingly hard to locate. I mean lets look at the facts. Most people can't handle the intense rush of minty goodness let alone the dark green stain left on your tongue. Most grocery stores and Targets carry orange and white tic tacs. What in the world do I need an ORANGE tic tac for? If I want an orange flavor I will buy gum, don't be foolish. The white or "freshmint" variety will sustain me in a rush of tic tac induced fervor but it only calms the beast. What I really want is dark green.

I have learned to search for my drug of choice whenever I am in a strange place where the selling of candy seems silly. When in college the only dark green tic tac dealer in town was my local Ace Hardware store. To think I originally thought they were only good for nails and wood and replacement filters for my fine particulate matter mask. Jackpot!

One spot that is always hit or miss is the gas station. It is like scratching off a lottery ticket to see if you won. I walk in, I look around for the candy isle, my eyes scan for the familiar rectangular plastic cases...orange...light green...white....damn. Recently when my car broke down in Alpine, CA my vigilant search was rewarded. Not only did this local Shell gas station carry dark green tic tacs but low and behold they had cinnamon too (refer to Atomic Fire Balls to understand my love of cinnamon candy). If I thought dark green was hard to find then the hopes of seeing cinnamon tic tacs again in my lifetime was simply an urban legend. I think my impulse to consume tic tacs is so great that is outweighed the misery of the car repair costs I was about to incur in Alpine.

I am no longer phased my the looks I receive as I approach a cash register with ten packs of tic tacs in hand. I never know when the next lucky strike will be so I have to stock up when they present themselves. I have also learned that with the advent of 53 different types and flavors of gums and about a million varieties of mints that tic tacs are considered by most to be out dated. On a recent car trip I generously (but not without wishing they would decline) offered my tic tac container forward to the other passengers in the vehicle. Thank goodness they declined my offer, but also asked inquisitively,"You still eat tic tacs?". YES, I do.

That leads into my other tic tac issue. Not only do I still eat tic tacs but I cannot stop myself. Once the seal is broken on that little plastic flip top the tic tacs inside have maybe 30 minutes to live. Once they hit my tongue it is all over. I eat one....I eat two....I can't help but pop one more...ok last one...well maybe one more, I will suck on this one instead of chewing it and that will make it last....on and on this goes until the sad sound of one lone tic tacs rings out from the plastic receptacle. Well, I might as well finish the pack, right? I have made myself feel a little ill on more than one occasion simply because I ingested one too many tic tacs in too short a time period. Pathetic, I know.

It is my burden to bear.

In conclusion I will say that step one is admitting you have a problem. Alright, I admit it and also admit I have no plans to get clean. Let me know if you find my next great dark green tic tac dealer.....

4 comments:

Kate said...

Call me an enabler, but I look for green tic tacs for you everywhere I go. One of these days you'll find yourself part of a reenactment of the end of Juno only with dark green tic tacs. ;)

Love the new blog design!

Anonymous said...

I feel the same exact way and that's why I googled "green tictacs" and found your page. No other results seemed like a match. Anyway, before I end up writing a blog on your blog I'll try to tell my story.

I asked one place near me (near Philadelphia) and they said green Tictacs were discontinued! I found some in an airport in FL in January, at a gas station in CT in August and then recently lots of them in CA. I guess it looks like I'm addicted but I think it's a conspriacy against me:-) What area are you from?

The only spearmint thing that I could find without some artificial sweetener were unsatisfying green pinwheel mints (like the red ones).

I hope I didn't write too much.

Albert from Drexel Hill, PA

Jen and Chris said...

Lol, I am glad I am not alone in my issue! I am in Arizona but the last dark green ones I saw were in Alpine, California! I can't believe they would discontinue them. Happy Hunting!

Anonymous said...

Okay, here we are 5 years later - has anyone here found the dark green tic-tacs yet?!?!?!?!?! We use them mixed with the red tic tacs and put them in an HO train car for under our Christmas tree each year - we call it Christmas coal. The apple mints (and the winter mints, of course) don't come close to pulling off the display.

We have been using the same tic tacs for at least 10 years now. Fortunately you can't kill these things off, but it would be nice find at least one box of the dark green (red are easy to find) for back up in case the old ones suddenly vaporize or something.

Please let me know,

Desperate!