The Fudge Snowman
During the first Christmas I was working at my current place of employment, the department celebrated the holiday with a gift exchange. Because names are traditionally selected at random, it’s possible to draw the name of another person that you don’t exactly care for. As it happened, this was the case for a woman I worked with named Luanne. She was somewhat fondly referred to around the department as Crazy Lu because of her extreme opinions and sometimes bizarre behavior. Most of these opinions came out in loud declarations that often involved someone going to hell for one alleged crime or another.
Luanne drew the name of someone that she despised. Whatever had transpired between them happened long before I was hired, but it had developed into what seemed to be a one sided loathing. Crazy Lu confided in a few of us that it would surely be a cold day in hell before she spent one red cent on an actual Christmas gift for this person. Luanne was famous for bringing blocks of homemade fudge to office lunches, and she just happened to have a stockpile at home that would make the perfect gift.
On the day of the exchange, Luanne showed up with a gigantic blob of fudge stuck to the top of a jagged piece of cardboard that appeared to have been recently ripped from a large box. With a loud THUNK she dropped the concoction on her desk. Looking down at the blob, she muttered something about it looking misshapen (which I had thought was the point) and then began to mash the mound furiously until it more closely resembled a pudgy brown human shaped blob of fudge. With fingerprints. All over. It was perhaps the most amazing and frightening thing I had ever seen. If it had been Halloween, she might have won a prize.
When the gift exchange occurred a few hours later, the snowman was accepted graciously…and dumped unceremoniously in the trash minutes later. At least I think it was since I didn’t hear about anyone dying from fudge snowman poisoning that year.
Luanne left the company a few months later, but we kept her memory alive by spreading the story of her special gift. It’s become a Christmas classic of sorts among the long time members of our department. These days, if a bad gift is received, you may hear it said that someone got the fudge snowman.
