All I wanted was three boxes of toffee sent to my daughter as a house gift. This was because my daughter, who has exquisite taste in many things including candy, is particularly fond of See’s Toffee-ettes. I discovered this on a visit to her house, when I was about to withdraw a toffee from the See’s box on the counter. “Watch it,” remarked her gentleman friend; “you don’t want to be taking the last one.”
My daughter, it seems, had brought a box back from a trip to San Francisco some time ago, and rationed them carefully out to herself. Down to the final toffee, she walked in from a long day and reached into the box. Turning upon her mild-mannered gentleman friend she said: “YOU. ATE. MY. LAST. TOFFEE-ETTE? I cannot believe you did that!! My LAST toffee-ette.” It was reportedly a very bad scene. But soon afterwards a package arrived from the See’s people (via the gentleman friend), containing three boxes of Toffee-ettes, and harmony was restored.
Back in San Francisco, the motherland of chocolate and toffee, I knew exactly what I wanted to send for a house gift. I went immediately to the store, found the toffee and placed the order; anyone who has ever found The Perfect Gift will know how supreme was my self-satisfaction.
Weeks later, curious as to why I hadn’t heard anything, I learned that no house gift had appeared. More weeks passed as I struggled to trace the order. Equipped with sales ticket, order number and a clutch of stapled-together slips of paper, I pleaded with the local store manager (“You’ll have to deal with the online order department”) and the online order department (“You need to go back to the store”) in an ongoing comedy of errors that was not funny at all. More days went by.
“Maybe you should call Warren Buffett,” my husband remarked.
“Warren Buffett?”
“Sure. The story is he bought See’s because he liked their candy.”
Well, this reporter was unable to confirm that story… but Buffett undoubtedly likes the company. Berkshire Hathaway bought it in 1972 for $25 million. Today it brings in more than three times that much every year in earnings. My daughter and I certainly do our part to help.
Whether or not Mary See – the smiling, bespectacled lady on the candy boxes – had the Toffee-ettes recipe in her collection when she helped her son Charles open the first store, in Los Angeles, in 1921, is also unconfirmed. But likely; Mary did know her candies.
Somebody, somewhere eventually found my order and started a new shipment, which reached my daughter approximately two months after my visit.
We want to believe the original shipment went to Warren Buffett.