With our fieldtrip group this month, we went to Sweet's Candy Factory. I brought the stroller with me for Tyler so I wouldn't have to carry him around in the carseat. We came into the lobby and sat down for about 5-10 minutes. Then an employee comes and tells us there are a few rules to take care of before we could go on the tour of the candy factory. Then she lists off a bunch of things that are not allowed inside, all of which I had with me or was wearing: strollers, purses, coats, Jewelry, drinks, food, cameras...etc. So this was after I had stuffed all the kids coats and my purse inside the stoller and had Tyler all strapped in and ready to go. I was kinda annoyed that she didn't just tell me right when I walked in with the stoller that couldn't bring it in. Anyhow, so I went back outside to the car with Tyler to put the stroller back in along with the coats and my purse, etc. Then thankfully I had my Lucky Baby sling to put Tyler in (which I love and has been a nifty little hands free life-saver for me ever since I had Jeremy and was way outnumbered kid-wise - I highly recommend it. My babies fall asleep as soon as I put them in it.)
I went back inside and the lady said to me, "Ma'am, you have to remove your bracelet and check it in at the front desk." I was thinking... ok I can understand my rings, earrings and necklaces, but my big huge chunky bracelet??? I was confused as to what me wearing it had to do with going on a candy factory tour. Did they think it was going to slip off... cause it takes me like an hour to get it on. I have to practically bend my hand in half. I was really annoyed.
Then she comes up to me after I got my bracelet off and checked in and says, "Uh Ma'am... you need to remove your wedding ring as well. Now you can place that in your pocket if you wish. We won't make you check that in. But just make sure it doesn't fall out." OH REALLY! Thank YOU SO MUCH! Now I get to practically rip my whole finger off just to try to get my wedding ring that i just barely was able to put back on a few months ago from having Tyler. I was about really to just tell the kids to forget it and let's go home. LOL. So I took my ring off and my finger now looked like it belonged to a freakin' Giant's hands or a huge sausage. The lady passes out hair nets. I unfortunately wore my hair down that day. She handed me this weak hair net thing and I was laughing, "Yeah, right! Like my hair is going to fit in that and not fall out at all!" Somehow I managed to stuff my big mass of hair into that thing and then she handed me this little tiny net for baby Tyler. Now that was funny! He looked really cute in it. Too bad cameras weren't allowed. :( Then the lady taps me on the shoulder one last time, and I was thinking, "What NOW, lady! Come on!" She said, "Ma'am, I am going to need you to make sure that you keep a good hold of that pacifier for your baby. You better be certain you still have it when you come out of the tour." All I could do was laugh. Hilarious.
After that I guess I passed the test and was clear for lift-off... errrr I mean clear to go into a extremely secure candy factory. There were a few interesting things about the factory though. They run all their chocolate cherry, orange and raspberry sticks through metal detectors to make sure there aren't any pieces of metal in them... which is extremely reassuring. Also they have a huge forklift thing called Bert that is remote controlled by radio signals of wires ran through the teeny tiny cracks of the factory floor. Also we got samples of yummy salt water taffy and powder sugared jelly beans (before they are coated with their hard shell... i thought they tasted better that way.)
I had no idea when I walked into the factory that day that candy stores use such extreme security measures. Candy is really serious business though, not to be taken lightly. LOL
