Boy Scout Candy (so called because Mom got the recipe once at a Boy Scout Exposition in about 1965 and we just don't change family recipe names for the heck of it)
Melt a stick of butter in a saucepan Add: 2 cups sugar ½ cup Cocoa 2/3 cup milk Heat. When bubbles begin, boil 5 minutes. Stir in: ½ cup coconut ½ cup nuts (chopped pecans, walnuts, etc) ½ tsp vanilla 3 cups quick oatmeal Damn near anything else can be mixed in, too. Drop in gobbets onto wax paper.  Makes a LOT.	I work in a unit with a preponderance of middle-age women, and ponderous is an accurate description for most every one of us. Our youth, lesser employment and frisky slimness are mostly in the past, and we do not miss many meals these days. Every occasion is celebrated with food. On a tough day, someone will tiptoe past cubicles to set a chocolate kiss on the desk beside each harried worker, and when a holiday looms the serious cooks go into overdrive, hefting CrockPots in the elevator and setting out a spread that would make Lutherans despair.  Even for an early-morning staff meeting, I brought a huge platter of Boy Scout Candy, since it makes a huge quantity, after all.  We scribbled notes, spoke our pieces, passed around the platter, and snapped a few pictures of various co-workers in Hawaiian shirts, since it was a theme day.  Fortunately, the coconut in the candy suited the tropical theme, too. So as we prepared to file out, a woman appeared in the doorway decked out in a flourescent vest and hard hat.  "Boy," I whispered to the woman next to me, "I'm glad I'm not in HER unit for DressUp Theme Day." And about that time the woman said, "This is an earthquake preparedness drill. Everyone under the table." We stared blankly.  Our boss turned to us and said mildly, "She's not kidding. Under the table." It is fair to note that the boss, a woman suited to head a department of Gravitationally Enhanced persons, made a swift and discreet exit.  The rest of us, after a few dismayed glances, slowly sank to our knees and crawled under the table. One, who'd stepped out into the hall, walked back into the meeting room and stopped, thunderstruck at finding a dozen floral-clad women sprawled in poses that might appear seductive but were more an accomodation to bad knees, giggling and snapping photos of each other with our camera phones, being well prepared for an earthquake and passing around the platter of Boy Scout Candy.