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On the way back from the wedding yesterday I bought the kids some cherry flavoured Tictacs for the journey. I used to love Tictacs when I was a kid, not that we had the array of flavours they have now and so I was suspicious of the cherry ones. But I tried some and it turned into a very Proustian moment for me.
Firstly because I was eating Tictacs again, having not eaten many in the last 45 years. I remembered eating them as a kid and suddenly had a hankering for my Tictac of choice, the orange Tictac. I didn't like it when they mixed (I think) orange and lime ones in the same tub, but I liked the orange ones on their own. I'd eat the mint ones sometimes, but they were quite sharp and not my favourite, but would do the job if you needed a Tictac but there were no orange ones around.
For some reason once the Tictacs were finished I liked to fill the tiny container with water, so that I had a very small flask on my person if I got thirsty later. I've told Catie about this before and she finds it very amusing. Tictacs are now in a bigger little tub, but still not big enough to carry much liquid.
Do they still do orange Tictacs? Probably. Not sure I should risk getting addicted to them again.
Secondly I had my Marcel Proust remembrance of things past moment (pretty much all I know about Proust comes from
the fabulous Monty Python sketch) because the cherry Tictacs taste quite a bit like original flavour Tunes. My Grandma always had a packet in her handbag and I'd eat them like sweets, rather than the serious medicine/drug they actually are.
So I was taken back to drinking slightly tainted water out of a Tictac tub and feeling cool with Phil Fry at Fairlands Middle School and to Benson Street in Middlesbrough and my Grandma's lounge. All from one little taste explosion.
Would Proust have been as successful if he'd written about Tictacs instead of biscuits? (spoiler alert- but it's a very long book and so I've saved you some trouble there and also won the summarising Proust competition)
Who knows?
For those of you who think time travel isn't possible, I have a futuristic pill to prove you wrong.
I wouldn't like to live in the Seventies again, but it was nice to visit.
