Rainbows and Lollipops

Art by Bria

"It's not all rainbows and lollipops you know."

I looked at the man in white overalls covered in splashes of color.

"It looks like it's a bit of rainbows and lollipops though," I ventured. "You look like you play paintball with Keebler Elves."

"No I don't," the man protested.

"You're covered in colors!" I pointed out.

"Yeah, and what are the Keebler Elves known for?"

The question threw me for a second.

"Cookies?" I managed.

"Fudge cookies. Not exclusively, of course, but fudge nonetheless." He gestured at the stains. "Do these look like fudge stains to you?"

"No?" I said.

"Exactly." He punctuated his statement with a finger pointed aggressively at my chest. "If you're going to work in this business you need to know. Rainbows, kid - who does rainbows?"

"Uh," I paused for a long moment. "Skittles?"

"Good! 'Taste the rainbow.'" He said, relaxing back for a moment. "I would have allowed Nerds or M&Ms due to the candy coating too, but saying 'you played paintball in a Skittles factory' would have been good."

"Why do I have to know this sort of thing?" I asked.

"Because they're friggin' fussy is why. Sometimes a real pain in the toosh. Speaking of which, did you have covid recently?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"And your sense of smell hasn't recovered?" he continued.

"Yeah," I repeated slower. "How'd you know?"

He grinned.

"You might be just the person I need right now."

"How'd you know I had covid?" I demanded.

"This isn't rainbows and lollipops, kid," he said, gesturing at his overalls again. "This is unicorn shit."