Beware of cheese sticks in candy bar wrappers

I knew that calling 911 would be pointless. How would I ever explain that, while minding my own business cutting the front lawn, my oldest daughter assaulted me with a cheese stick? And besides, even if I had wanted to, I was laughing too hard to speak clearly.

A bit of a backdrop may be of assistance in helping you to understand how the Swiss swat came to happen. Maybe a year or so ago, I came home and opened the refrigerator in search of a quick snack. There, on the top shelf at eye level, was a bite-size 3 Musketeers bar. In took me approximately 0.04 of a second to rip open the packaging, pop the minuscule morsel into my mouth and swallow it.

About an hour later, my daughter came looking for me, in a clearly agitated frame of mine. It seems I had committed a horrible transgression; that little piece of chocolate was “hers,” she had claimed it and was going to eat it later.

Ever since then, each time some piece of chocolate is “hers,” she makes a major demonstration of that fact, forbidding me from even thinking about it.

A bit over a week ago, she brought home a fullsize 3 Musketeers. It had been in the vehicle for a while and had flattened out a bit due to melting. Her plan was to put it in the fridge and eat it later once it resolidified.

When I arrived in the kitchen a bit later, I once again went looking for a snack. I opened the refrigerator door, and there on the top shelf was the candy bar. I, though, was looking for something else. I opened a lower drawer and retrieved a round cheese stick, and as soon as I did the thought hit me like an epiphany from the land of masterful mischief: That cheese stick was about the same size as that slightly melted candy bar. The surgery was time-consuming but utterly, brilliantly successful. I managed to get the candy bar out of the wrapper and put the cheese stick in its place. I resealed the wrapper so masterfully that no CSI technician would ever detect my subterfuge. The only thing left was to wait …

Five days. It was five days later till my work paid its glorious dividends. I felt the cheese stick wallop me in the back about the same time I heard my daughter shriek, “Daddy!!!”

My wife, aware of what I had done, was on the front porch coming unglued. My youngest daughter was shaking her head in admiration. Her exact words were, “That is super savage!”

Wait, please put down that pen and hold off just for a moment on that angry letter telling me how horrible a person I am. I never said that I ate the candy bar. The candy bar was safe and un ingested in a plastic bag in the back of the fridge. I told her where it was, and she has since enjoyed every calorie-laden bite of it.

Yes, there actually is a spiritual point to all of this. Though the wrapping was the same as ever, the contents were vastly different. And no one would ever know the difference without really tearing into it and checking it out.

In 2 Chronicles 12, due to his disobedience, the king of Israel managed to lose the priceless golden shields that Solomon had made. But rather than set things right and get them back, King Rehoboam simply made brass shields in their place. To the untrained eye, they would have seemed nearly identical to what had been lost, but anyone who really dug into the matter would have found that the priceless had been replaced by the paltry.

I see much of that in our precious America these days. I see political correctness living in the wrapper that used to be occupied by science; personal and group agendas living in the wrapper that used to be occupied by journalism; and narcissistic group-think living in the wrapper that used to be occupied by academia.

Worst of all, though, I often see celebrities living in the wrapper that used to be occupied by preachers. The days of Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul have given way to the days of Colgate smile, perfectly coiffed, silver-tongued, always soothing, universally popular replacements.

Yet it was Jesus himself who said, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”

Let’s be real, folks; no one is ever well served by a wrapper devoid of the right contents.