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Cinnamon Toothpick memories... These days, sour
candy is the thing, but back when I was a kid, cinnamon was our
favorite form of taste-bud masochism. I had never seen cinnamon
toothpicks for sale on a store shelf, but the other children would
bring bunches of toothpicks that they had soaked in cinnamon oil (the
longer, the better) and preserved in aluminum foil. These dealers would sell just a
few toothpicks to each of us for a considerable amount, making an
enormous profit. (This dealer's price is MUCH, MUCH more reasonable.)
The cinnamon toothpick was a rite of passage. The longer you could
keep one in your mouth the cooler you were. Often we would chew the
toothpick into splinters, trying to extract all of the tasty cinnamon
oil.
If you were really brave, you would try cinnamon toilet-paper. The
highly-absorbent toilet-paper was perfectly-suited to soaking up
cinnamon oil. Just a spit-wad-sized bit tucked behind your lip felt
like it was burning a hole through the inside of your mouth and bring
tears to your eyes.
Like many such pursuits (pencil-fighting and miniature motorized 4x4
truck pulls, for example), the school leadership would ban cinnamon
toothpicks for no other apparent reason than that they supposedly
disrupted the learning environment. Drugs in school were unheard of,
at the time. ~ Clifton in Florida
Mmmm, cinnamon toothpicks. One day meeting up with some friends one of them revealed
he'd made his own cinnamon toothpicks. We debated his method and the conversation turned to the liquid cinnamon he used not being strong
enough.
The leading skeptic was challenged to take a sip of the liquid cinnamon. He agreed. Bad move. His face
turned red and he ran for the water fountain. We followed and as he drank the water a small cloud of smoke (steam?) left his mouth. It was
the coolest thing we'd ever seen but no one was willing to repeat the experiment. ~ Jonathon from Texas
My favorite memory of the cinnamon toothpicks! My sister and I would go to Catechism
once a week. We always had a package of toothpicks with us. One day the Nun had put on a movie for us to watch, when the movie was over she
looked over at my sister and me, looked on the floor and noticed sticks upon sticks of chewed cinnamon toothpicks, BOY was she mad.
After a knuckle slap with a ruler, we had to pick them up and be on our way. Every time I see Cinnamon
toothpicks, I think of when I was back to 1979 and how much fun I had. ~ Nichole from Pennsylvania
Cinnamon Toothpicks
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