![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
You know your family's Canadian when..
Nov. 25th, 2007 05:43 pmYou spend half a year running around trying to locate soap flavoured gum to send to the Deployed Ones for Christmas.
No, seriously. It does taste like soap. We all grew up on it. I like it, but I love anything clove or rosewater flavoured, and my siblings do as well. Most of them are stuck in the Middle East, and thus I can't send them chocolate or anything that might melt for Christmas. So, I thought, how hard can it be to find this gum?
Turns out, very. Concord Confections was sold to the Tootsie Roll company, who assures me they still make and market Thrills in Canada, in 7-11 and Dollarama stores. I could not find it the last time I was in Thunder Bay. Several people I know have gone on manhunts for me and been unable to locate it. I put a call out on the snack-swapping community I'm part of to see if any of the Canadians there have access to it.
A few years ago, I had this exact same problem with Adams Clove Gum, which had been off the market for five years, and according to the company, never to return. Apparently the massive outcry from the clove gum addicts on the intardnetz changed their mind and they re-batched it a few years ago. Everyone I know went out and bought me a supply of it, and I have literally a crate of it in my freezer.
The problem is, if I want to send the Thrills gum out with any hope of it arriving near Christmas, I have to send it out very, very soon. I tried ordering it from a place online, but they sent me an email yesterday telling me they're out of stock and have no clue when they'll get more in. ARGH!
For those of you who also send things to Deployed Ones, or for those of you who might like to send things but have no-one to send them to, here's a list of things that go over very well:
* Good coffee, especially if it's in brew-bags.
* Likewise tea or individual cocoa packets
* Cookies of almost any kind - but they must be commercial brand, homemade is not allowed to be sent anymore. (Which SUCKS!)
* Hot apple cider packets
* Warm socks, gloves, scarves, hats, thermal shirts and longjohns - it sounds dumb, but the desert gets freezing at night, and the military maneuvers don't stop when the sun goes down.
* Chapstick, hand lotion. (Do not, for the love of all that's holy, send any scented /anything/ with food items unless you want them all to taste like the chemical scent. .. though this would be one way to get them soap-flavoured gum..)
* If they're in Iraq or elsewhere in the sandbox, baby wipes, calamine lotion, aloe vera gel, hand sanitizer
* International calling cards are nice, but postcards, writing utensils, and nifty paper and envelopes go over better.
* Movies or music of almost any kind, ditto magazines.
* Gummi candies hold up well, even in heat, and so do individually wrapped hard candies.Christmas ribbon candy? That shit has a half-life and is well-nigh indestructible.
* Newspapers - I send The Onion, because it's funny.
* Fun stuff like cards or small games. I like sending magnetic games, because they find new and creative ways to do things with the pieces.
My brothers do a thing every year where they ask for children's clothing/items for Christmas, because most of the bros are deployed as guards for refugee camps and the children have pretty much nothing. So I send toys and kids' things, clothing, shoes, etc, as well as the stuff I send my brothers normally.
Helpful tip for people sending things: Don't bother sending it overnight or express - it doesn't help. Basically, you're paying for the package to go to NY, CA, or FL - from there, the military pays the overseas shipping charges. Do not - do NOT - let the postal people try to tell you you're paying for freight to a foreign country, because if you've got an APO/FPO address, believe me, you're not - I've been doing this since I was five years old. You're only shipping to the US drop point, the military postal service picks it up from there.
Anyway. There, an updated post. Sorry it's not really funny - I'm too busy trying to find @!#^%&#& soap flavoured gum right now.
No, seriously. It does taste like soap. We all grew up on it. I like it, but I love anything clove or rosewater flavoured, and my siblings do as well. Most of them are stuck in the Middle East, and thus I can't send them chocolate or anything that might melt for Christmas. So, I thought, how hard can it be to find this gum?
Turns out, very. Concord Confections was sold to the Tootsie Roll company, who assures me they still make and market Thrills in Canada, in 7-11 and Dollarama stores. I could not find it the last time I was in Thunder Bay. Several people I know have gone on manhunts for me and been unable to locate it. I put a call out on the snack-swapping community I'm part of to see if any of the Canadians there have access to it.
A few years ago, I had this exact same problem with Adams Clove Gum, which had been off the market for five years, and according to the company, never to return. Apparently the massive outcry from the clove gum addicts on the intardnetz changed their mind and they re-batched it a few years ago. Everyone I know went out and bought me a supply of it, and I have literally a crate of it in my freezer.
The problem is, if I want to send the Thrills gum out with any hope of it arriving near Christmas, I have to send it out very, very soon. I tried ordering it from a place online, but they sent me an email yesterday telling me they're out of stock and have no clue when they'll get more in. ARGH!
For those of you who also send things to Deployed Ones, or for those of you who might like to send things but have no-one to send them to, here's a list of things that go over very well:
* Good coffee, especially if it's in brew-bags.
* Likewise tea or individual cocoa packets
* Cookies of almost any kind - but they must be commercial brand, homemade is not allowed to be sent anymore. (Which SUCKS!)
* Hot apple cider packets
* Warm socks, gloves, scarves, hats, thermal shirts and longjohns - it sounds dumb, but the desert gets freezing at night, and the military maneuvers don't stop when the sun goes down.
* Chapstick, hand lotion. (Do not, for the love of all that's holy, send any scented /anything/ with food items unless you want them all to taste like the chemical scent. .. though this would be one way to get them soap-flavoured gum..)
* If they're in Iraq or elsewhere in the sandbox, baby wipes, calamine lotion, aloe vera gel, hand sanitizer
* International calling cards are nice, but postcards, writing utensils, and nifty paper and envelopes go over better.
* Movies or music of almost any kind, ditto magazines.
* Gummi candies hold up well, even in heat, and so do individually wrapped hard candies.Christmas ribbon candy? That shit has a half-life and is well-nigh indestructible.
* Newspapers - I send The Onion, because it's funny.
* Fun stuff like cards or small games. I like sending magnetic games, because they find new and creative ways to do things with the pieces.
My brothers do a thing every year where they ask for children's clothing/items for Christmas, because most of the bros are deployed as guards for refugee camps and the children have pretty much nothing. So I send toys and kids' things, clothing, shoes, etc, as well as the stuff I send my brothers normally.
Helpful tip for people sending things: Don't bother sending it overnight or express - it doesn't help. Basically, you're paying for the package to go to NY, CA, or FL - from there, the military pays the overseas shipping charges. Do not - do NOT - let the postal people try to tell you you're paying for freight to a foreign country, because if you've got an APO/FPO address, believe me, you're not - I've been doing this since I was five years old. You're only shipping to the US drop point, the military postal service picks it up from there.
Anyway. There, an updated post. Sorry it's not really funny - I'm too busy trying to find @!#^%&#& soap flavoured gum right now.