The Meanest Candy Guy In The World

General Franco is alive and well, and he is working at the candy kiosk on the south end of the Alameda de Hercules. I discovered this a week ago. It was a normal Friday evening in Seville—sunny, warm. The locals were enjoying tapas and vino at the cafes that dot our street. I, the lonely stranger, an American, stepped into the night to buy wine at the liquor shop. Jenn’s last words reverberated in my mind: “Grab me something sweet while you’re out. Something chocolaty.” I didn’t want to feed her all-consuming taste for coco and sugar—the brown stuff, mocha, black velvet. But I knew if I didn’t comply, her condition would deteriorate, perhaps into convulsions.

My bag was full of Rioja and vino blanco—the seco kind, not that dulce stuff—when I stepped to his booth. “Uh… uh… Uno Kit-Kat, por favor,” I timidly spoke through his little speak hole, the kind that adorn candy kiosks in Spain. His eyes were cold, his temper fomenting. His words shot back at me like cruel, mocking bullets that could not properly hit their target—for those bullets were in Spanish, and the target spoke none.

“Uh…uhmmmmm… Unos Keeet-Kaaaht, por fah-bor!!!” I fumbled, speaking louder, pointing my staccato finger for emphasis at that delicious confection alluringly hugging the window like a stripper in one of those peep booths. I grew panicky. I wanted to retreat, but then pictured Jenn on our apartment floor, needing the sweet, that dark chocolate rain. I’m sure by now she had grown desperate, gripped once again in the clench of her fanged sweet tooth.

He looked at me, said something I cannot repeat, for it was in a strange tongue. And then, in a tone befitting a cruel dictator at the crescendo of his angriest speech, he spoke: “Keeeeet-Kaahhhhhht!!!” His uncaring fingers impatiently pulled that delicious candy from its perch, his glare singed my eyes, and then he released the Kit-Kat before me. He said something. I handed him a Euro, cowering as I awaited my change.

But there would be no change that day, my friends. For, apparently it costs a Euro to buy a Kit-Kat in Spain. But I knew I was lucky to escape from General Franco with those four light, crispy, chocolate-coated wafers and my life.