Skittles and ticks

At work the red-haired guy (as he shall now be called) called my name and held up a huge bag of Skittles that he'd found in the machine shop office.

"Have some of these," he said.

I walked over and held out my hand. "Just dump some in," I said. "My hands are dirty."

"This is the machine shop. Just dig in."

When in Rome. So I grabbed some Skittles with my hand that was filthy from CNC coolant. God only knows what else was in that communal bag of Skittles.

Rather than hold a handful of Skittles in my nasty hand, I just dumped them all into my mouth. I probably hadn't had that much candy in my mouth at one time since I was little.

The red-haired guy stood beside me with his own handful of Skittles and then reached around his head with his other hand. He pulled something out of his hair I assumed was just a piece of aluminum since I always ended up with the stuff in my hair, pockets, wallet, mouth, etc. He showed me a tick as I chewed an inhuman quantity of Skittles.

The crazy guy came up and the red-haired guy offered him the tick. Much to my surprise, the crazy guy accepted the tick. He put on the table where I was sitting and then got his lighter out. The flame touched the tick. "Watch it pop," the crazy guy said. I leaned away, still chewing my Skittles.

He ended up mashing the tick with a piece of metal.

The red-haired guy then offered the rest of his handful of Skittles to the crazy guy, who actually took them and ate them.

"If you want some more Skittles the bag's in the office," the red-haired guy said.

"No, I've had enough," I said.