Hey all… time to snoop through Noah’s diary again. Why? Because we can.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 10:30am:Still haven’t figured out where Ursula’s hiding the peanut butter cups she got on Halloween. I’ve been through everything looking to collect the Dad Tax but no dice.
And I know she still must have some because I was there when she went trick-or-treats. In fact, since she got all snippy and dressed up as me and called herself “The Peanut Butter Cup Bandit” she insisted I go up to the doors with her so folks could admire how exact her costume was and I saw exactly how many she got.
Ugh… I mean, OK, it was clever. She had a peach bodysuit that she stapled a chunk of shaggy fake fur to to make it look like my chest hair under an open shirt, then an unbuttoned satin shirt with the sleeves rolled up, then sparkly red pants and that witch wig got chopped up to look sorta like my hair with my grey streaks but still: the Dad Tax isn’t banditry. It’s tradition.
Everywhere that kids trick-or-treat, dads collect a tax from the Halloween haul when the kids are asleep. Especially peanut butter cups. It’s normal.
Besides, it’s educational: kids will have to pay money taxes when they grow up. I mean, some dads really go all out with teaching about money budgeting. I’ve heard of dads who had little jars where the kids had to divvy up their allowance into different purposes: a savings jar, a “rent” jar, a charity jar, etc. So they gave an inflated allowance and then clawed some back so the kids get used to planning for that.
I don’t do that, but I do eat some of the peanut butter cups and I think that’s a fair tradeoff.
Ruth always rolls her eyes and says I ought to just buy my own peanut butter cups and leave Ursula hers but that’s missing the point. Besides, if it was up to Ruth, Ursula would only get one piece of candy a day and that kinda results in the same sorta thing.
We do agree on trying to hide away any of the candy that has crazy food coloring in it. Lots of those chemicals are actually banned in the E.U. or the UK ‘cause they mess with kids’ brains and make them all jittery and hyperactive and stuff.
I think in America they’re banning those chemicals… but there’s still so much crap in kids’ treats.
Usually Ursula doesn’t really notice too much that the colorful stuff vanishes. I think she thinks I eat it all, but naw… I’m after the peanut butter cups.
We usually try to keep chocolate and candy out of the house. I bake cookies etc. from scratch so even though there’s still sugar, there’s no weird chemical preservatives or whatever but there are actual nutrients.
Ursula, of course, considers home-baked goodies to be a form of health food. And she’s suspicious of my homemade gummy bears since she knows they’re made from fruit juice and thus are also health food. But she will eat them.
Which reminds me: I gotta make a fresh batch of gummy bears on Friday when Ursula’s in school. I’m hoping to make gummy dinosaurs, actually. Depends if the dino molds arrive from Amazon by then.
Ruth thinks Ursula eats too many gummy bears but I told her: it’s just fresh-squeezed fruit juice, honey, stevia, and gelatin. Lots of vitamins and gelatin is good for bone and joint health and also helps regulate blood sugar. At least that’s what the Google AI says.
Speaking of homemade candy… I’ll have to make some marshmallows soon. It’s getting into hot chocolate season and there will be no storebought sodium phosphate marshmallows in this house.
Besides: mine taste better.
It might have to wait for next week ‘cause you’re supposed to do it on a dry day so the marshmallows set better. Which is kinda hard here in Victoria, especially in the fall and winter. I should probably get a little dehumidifier for the kitchen that I can set next to the marshmallows.
If the band thing wasn’t going so decently and if I didn’t need to stay home in the daytime to mind the baby (and Ursula after school), I would probably seriously think about opening up my own food truck. Call it “Noah’s Num-Nums” and all I would sell would be cookies and goodies.
Swap the menu out every few days, have unexpected flavorings like maple cinnamon marshmallows, and park the truck next to gyms to get that post-workout “I burned 200 calories so I can eat 2000 calories of cookies” crowd. I could also make a deal with someone who has a burger truck where we park together and customers can get their main meal from them and then come get their dessert from me.
I’d make a fortune!
But I think food trucks are a lot of work. Long hours, etc.
And singing Bruno Mars songs at weddings pays more for less work. It’s more efficient.
But I dunno… maybe in a few years when Valerie’s finally in school. Plus, eventually Ursula’s gonna need a part-time job as a teenager and she could be my cashier while I’m in the back of the truck making candy.
I would think by then we’ll be a cashless society so the whole “hates math” thing won’t be an issue as she won’t have to make change, just get them to tap their cards.
Hopefully she won’t have too much of a bad attitude towards customer service. We’ll see.
