Lick lollypop, risk life in lockup

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October 16, 2009

By Karen Middleton The News Courier Fri Oct 16, 2009, 02:38 PM CDT

ATHENS — We’ve long known that sugary treats can lead to obesity and tooth decay, but according to a British study published Friday, eating lollies as children can also lead to an adult life of crime.

Here, we’ve been blaming prison overcrowding on poverty, broken homes, child abuse, illiteracy, drugs, alcohol, environment, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time for 10 percent and the other 90 percent because of being framed, but it seems now that Reece’s Pieces might have filled up Cell Block No. 9.

There might be something to this theory. Think of kids on a sugar high — bouncing off walls, jumping on the sofa, slam-dunking the cat in backyard basketball — and you mutter, “That little demon ought to be locked up!”

And all those Halloween nights when your children couldn’t sleep and you blamed it on bratty neighborhood kids traumatizing them, when it fact, the little darlings were so wired on Milk Duds they could have stuck up a 7-Eleven with a squirt gun.

And then there was the so-called “Twinkie Defense” of about 30 years ago in which Dan White, accused of the assassinations of a San Francisco mayor and supervisor, claimed he had a mood disorder triggered to a lethal level by sugary junk food.

It’s all starting to add up. Just the other day I heard a supposedly sane, mature woman exclaim, “I could kill for a Snickers bar right now.”

No doubt her homicidal urges started when, as a mere lass, she popped M&M;’s.

So … This all brings to mind the subject of snakes. I’ve received more comments, in person, online, e-mailed and phoned in, on last week’s column about a mama snake in my safe room than I have on any column I’ve ever written.

Last Thursday, I laced on my high boots, got a pointed shovel out of the garage and ventured down to the safe room to perform an eviction.

You remember how I said that I store my Christmas trimmings in the safe room? I whacked boxes, shook bags and decapitated an elf, but I didn’t find the snake.

The only thing I can think of is that after the birth of the baby snakes she regained her pre-pregnancy svelte figure and slithered out under the door.

Let’s hope.

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Karen Middleton

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Lick lollypop, risk life in lockup

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