Tis the Season for a Simple Story

Last week-end was Mary's Annual Cookie Exchange. 
2:00 Saturday.
In Longmont.

So at 11:30 on Friday night we are baking cookies. 
And baking cookies. 
And baking cookies.

When we finished, I took them right out to the car for safekeeping.

From the animals, of course.

We had talked about getting up at the buttcrack of dawn (since we usually do anyway) and leaving, but somehow miraculously we were able to sleep in until 5:45.  I've been selling a few things on E-Bay, so I took care of a few loose ends and conquered Green Valley Farms.  Damn, addictive games anyway.

We left town at 8:30 or so and shopped our way to Colorado.  We stopped in Cheyenne and went to Hobby Lobby looking for a specific gift for Mary.  We ran into Ellen, a friend that I hadn't seen for about a year.  Mardell rides with her to Ogallala for acupuncture, so she gets to see her all the time.  I don't, so I was especially happy to visit with her.

The northbound traffic on the interstate was horrible, and once we hit the Loveland area, it was backed up for miles and miles.  That was very stressful, even though it was the other lane, so we forced ourselves to get off at the Berthoud exit and go to the quilt store that was quitting business and having a 50% off sale.

It was pure torture, let me tell you.  

We found some nice goodies and happily took Highway 287 into Longmont.

We arrived somewhere in the neighborhood of 12:30 -1:00.  The party was at 2:00, so it worked out perfectly. Our cookies even survived the trip. 

Her party was a huge success and we had a great time.

I actually met someone there that admitted to reading our blog!  Can you believe that?  We actually have someone reading it that isn't related to us!!  How exciting is that?

Mary has a friend, Tara Simple, who is a bit CDO .... but just a teensy bit.  She is also a riot and so is her mother and sister.  It's been a long time since I laughed so hard.

At some point in the evening, the conversation turned to Tara's CDO and it came out that the week before she had thrown her chapstick out because it was past the expiration date of 2007.

Expiration date?  On chapstick?

Who knew?

So of course, I did like all of you are doing right now and I pulled out my Chapstick to check the expiration date. 

 

Hmmm, no expiration date.

If Tara's had an expiration date of 2007, I wonder just how old this is?!!

Of course, inquiring minds want to know, so I did a little research to see if I could determine when they began putting expiration dates on Chapstick.

It seems that I'm not the first to blog about Chapstick:

Chapstick 

Why Yes I Am Writing A Paper

Hooked on Balm

Then I found this:

"(4) Speaking of blog traffic, there are two topics that repeatedly bring more hits to this blog than anything else: searches for surfing, and searches for chapstick–more specifically, chapstick conspiracy theories and chapstick expiration dates. In fact, if you Google “chapstick conspiracy theory,” this blog is the first listing that comes up. Weird."

This appeared at Nathan Hyde's blog, so of course I had to Google "chapstick conspiracy theory".  He is right.  He does come up first, but only if you use the quotations.  Leave the quotation marks out and you have a mere 20,000 hits.

I found a 12-Step program for chapstick addicts.
E-mail me if you want the address.

But Tara, this is definitely the stick for you: 

Free Range Chicken Poop Lip Balm

for a mere $2.69

I'm glad to know it's a free range chicken pooping in my lip balm. 
I guess it's designed to keep one from licking their lips excessively --- hence the 12 step program.

I dare say it would work.