Back in my early twenties, when I returned to Central* New York, I moved into an apartment with my boyfriend at that time. When we'd settled in, my grandmother brought us a housewarming gift: a hideous--by way of folksy--candle shaped like a loaf of bread...the whole, long loaf. It had a single wick in the center, and was made of that gross wax substitute stuff, like expand-o-foam with a hard candy shell overtop. Thankfully my grandma admitted "It's no great shakes, I got it from my store" (her code for the Salvation Army--grandma was a thrifting maniac) and that it'd cost her a quarter; so we didn't have to work up any faux gratitude or pretend to like it or anything. She suggested we save it for when the electricity goes out, which happens every other day during winters in central New York. So we stuck it up on the fridge where it sat collecting dust and kitsch value.
A few months later a friend of ours moved to a new place. We decided--since she had seen and commented upon our stunning loaf-of-bread candle--it would be really funny to wrap it up and give it to her as a housewarming gift, which we did. The joke worked well. She opened the box, "Oh...goody. The, um, loaf of bread candle. From your house. How...thoughtful." I explained, "Well, you'd always admired it so much." Our bit went on for awhile, fully utilizing all of the sarcasm and eye rolling and clever obscure references those in their early twenties with college degrees find wildly amusing. She plopped it down in its place of honor, the fridge, and a slight look of horror overtook her face; she realized a tradition had been born, and she was to be saddled with the goddamn thing until it could be re-gifted again. After a few moments of silence and absent dusting of the loaf, she said, "Hasn't Harry been looking to get out of his place?"
Sure enough, someone in our circle of friends moved shortly thereafter. They were given the candle. Then the next friend, then the next. After a year or two, several new romances and break-ups (and the move-ins/move-outs that followed), people leaving town and returning, the candle had made it's way around the group a few times--I know I got it back at least twice. And even though you knew it was coming, it was always a surprise. Not a pleasant surprise necessarily, but not altogether unpleasant. It was like winning a low prestige award from an organization few had heard of. It meant you moved. It didn't matter if it was an upward, downward, or lateral move, just a move-- for which you received a hugely ugly commemorative candle. It had turned from a golden brown to a furry, sticky, battleship grey over time, but it got shoved up on the fridge just the same, as was the tradition. Maybe it's because my friends are arty-fart types who have a penchant for anthropomorphizing things, but no one ever considered tossing it out. I tried while packing up once, but it looked back at me from the trash like the lamp in rain in the Ikea ad. (Yes, I felt sorry for za leetle laamp.)
Like I said in the title of this post, there's no payoff. I have no idea what happened to the loaf-of-bread candle. My guess is it was given to an acquaintance of whomever had it last-- someone out of the loop, who didn't know its history, wasn't aware of the tradition or able to see it had grown a soul-- and was thrown in the garbage the second that person pulled out of the driveway.
*I have to say central instead of upstate now, because people who live in NYC call anything north of the island upstate, like Poughkeepsie; a town that would be considered downstate when I lived upstate which I've learned to call central so whomever I'm speaking to knows I mean the other part of New York...where there are lakes and farms and bridges to Canada.