The Church of the Confectionary

Anyone else remember Necco wafer candy? I saw a bag of them at the store in the Halloween candy section (I was only looking at the selection out of curiosity not because I wanted to see if they had "fun size" Milky Ways -- really -- curiosity).

We use to buy these all the time when I was a kid -- we used them as communion wafers. Necco wafers and those little wax bottles of some kind of syrup was the wine. And candy necklaces or bracelets were Rosary beads. Hey, I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood and this is what we did. It's a good thing they didn't make edible underwear back then (or at least we didn't know about it) or else we'd be wearing it on our heads as nun habits. We had to settle for pillow cases or if you pulled your shirt up over your head but didn't take it off you could use that as a wimple (I know it's called a wimple because of the Sound of Music "Underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair" but I never did understand how she had curlers in her hair when it was so darn short -- oops I'm drifting again aren't I?).

Now some would call what we did as being disrespectful or sacrilegious, some would call it traditional childhood role playing, I like to think of it as the beginning of learning how to multitask -- you could eat candy, role play, and stay out of hell all at the same time. In fact, I think if churches served Necco wafers and sugar water in wax bottles while playing show tunes there would be more people there on Sunday.

Go in peace ...