Conversation Hearts

I was talking to Waffle on the phone as she drove down to pick me up one afternoon for an evening of our particular brand of introverted mayhem and descended the stairs into the kitchen. I heard the tell-tale bang of one of my cookie sheets cooling.

"What's going on?" Foil lined the cookie sheet, which held...tiny conversation hearts?

Youngest gave me a stare that was slightly mutinous. "I baked them."

"What did they do?" Waffle chirped in my ear.

"She baked conversation hearts."

"What?!"

I studied Youngest and momentarily tuned Waffle out. "An experiment?"

Youngest nodded slowly.

I bobbed my head.

"She really baked them?"

"I don't think we should bake any more." I tried for a conspiratorial tone as I addressed Youngest. "At most they're going to just get hot. And hard."

Relieved to not be in trouble, Youngest smiled.

Experimental fare.

"Can you turn off the oven?"

Youngest moved to shut off the appliance while I went upstairs again. Standing in my bedroom with the door closed, I whispered, "She baked conversation hearts!"

"You can keep saying it like that, but it doesn't make it any less true," Waffle laughed.

I could no longer keep in the giggles. "She baked conversation hearts!"

"I'm five minutes away, and the static is crazy. I'll be there soon." Waffle hung up, and I went to go collect my stuff.

When I caught up with Waffle in my kitchen several minutes later, I found her contemplating the tray of baked conversation hearts and chewing carefully. "You didn't eat one, did you?"

"Once you get past the shell, you can avoid a trip to the dentist."

"I can't believe you're eating them."

She picked up another. "This one burned. It's got a different ink. It turned almost to glass."

I shook my head. "I'm going to go pack up my computer."

When I returned to the kitchen, I stared at the cookie sheet. "How many of those did you eat?"

Waffle gave me a sheepish look. "Almost all of the orange ones. One of them said turtle dove, but I was trying to read it upside down, and I thought it said something about Trump."

We laughed our way out of the house.