Not long ago I volunteered to help out with the Wednesday-night boys' Bible club at church. My job was a simple one. The club's director asked me to bring a brief lesson for the gathering time at the end of the night. As a veteran leader of Wednesday-night Bible clubs this should have been a cake walk. And maybe if I'd baked a cake I would have been all right.

The lesson I planned would be simple but memorable. The club's members are boys who are in the third through sixth grades. I'd make a caramel apple for one boy in each grade, plus one for a leader. I planned to conceal the last apple until the end, substituting a caramel-dipped onion for the fifth apple. Now, don't write me angry comments and don't call Protective Services. I planned to reveal my little subterfuge before anybody took a bite. The boys' suspicious looks, sniffs, scratches and tentative tastes would lead into my talk about how sometimes things that look good really aren't and it's wise to know how to tell the difference. Then I'd retrieve the counterfeit and give its holder the real apple. Believe me, I don't go around pulling mean tricks on small children. Nor do I look forward to Thursday-morning phone calls from angry mothers and distraught youth pastors. No children would be harmed. They might be a little grossed-out, but boys love that sort of action.

On Tuesday I stopped at the store and bought five Golden Delicious apples, a white onion of about the same size, some Kraft caramels and a bottle of caramel ice-cream topping. I figured that the topping would speed the coating process up since it was already liquid. The caramels were for the boys who didn't get apples; they could at least take home a pocketful of caramels. After supper I set to work. I poured the topping into the top half of a double-boiler and filled the bottom half with water. I put the double-boiler on the stove and turned to wash the apples before I stuck the sticks in them. By the time I had the last apple washed, rinsed and stuck I noticed that the empty topping bottle was almost clean inside save for a gooey little ring at the bottom. I stepped over to the stove and picked up a spoon, dipping it in the warm caramel. The stuff ran off like water. I took the double-boiler off the cooktop to let the caramel cool. Just then I realized, too late, that caramel topping was the wrong ingredient for coating apples. Since the topping ran off the bottle's sides at room temperature, clearly it was designed to congeal on ice cream!

I unwrapped one bag's worth of Kraft caramels and threw them in the topping, stirring vigorously to speed up the melting process. By the time I had all 50 in the pot (45 if you count the ones I sampled) the goo started to resemble caramel that belonged on an apple. I dipped the first apple in, rolled it around a bit and stuck it on some pre-greased waxed paper. For a moment the caramel appeared to be holding; perhaps all was not lost. Then, like a glacier suffering an inconvenient truth, the coating slowly oozed down the apple.

Still hoping for a satisfactory outcome, I let the coating cool a bit longer before I dipped the other apples. By the time I was done I had five partly-glazed apples surrounded by a puddle of melted caramel glop, a sticky brown trail across the stove to the countertop, and an ego as flat as an apple stick. I took a deep breath, got out some more waxed paper, buttered it up, and moved the apples onto it. Then I scraped the residue back in the pan and prepared to give the apples a second coat. As I picked up the double-boiler I looked down at the cooktop. My heart sank; I'd dropped the butter tub lid right in the center of the hot burner and melted it on the cooktop! I stared disbelieving at this new glob of sticky gunk. I could see the product logo printed on the other side. Carefully I lifted the outer ring, hoping that the thing was just really soft. Nope, it was goo; all I picked up was the ring.

Panic erased my frustration. I couldn't let Carolyn see what I'd done. That stove is her pride and joy, the crown jewel of her kitchen. Damaging her cooktop would be the same, to her, as leaving a full-length key scratch down the side of my truck. Quickly I fell back on a lesson I'd learned the hard way over 27 years of marriage. If you make a mistake, the best thing to do is...say it with me, married men...GET RID OF THE EVIDENCE!! I grabbed a metal spatula out of the kitchen drawer and quickly but very, very carefully scraped up and disposed of almost all the molten plastic, which extruded wispy little strings as I carried it to the trash. All that remained was some of the blue printing, including that infernal logo. I turned off the burner and moved the double-boiler to the other side of the cooktop.

Several tries later I finally got enough caramel to stick to the apples so that they didn't look completely anemic. Then I turned my attention to the onion. I peeled off the papery skin, trimmed off the ends and stuck a stick in it. By then I'd calmed down enough to remember to shove the stick in more deeply so I'd know the onion by its short handle. Not wishing to taint the apples, I dipped the onion last and stored it in a separate cooler. Then I made another unwelcome discovery: Onions hold even less caramel than apples do. A big shiny white spot glimmered through my candy camouflage. I tried a second dip; that only revealed more onion. I tried pouring semi-solid caramel over it. All I got for my effort was a large glob on the plate just below the bald spot. In one desperate final attempt I threw the onion in the cooler while the caramel was still at high tide, hoping the cold would slow the sliding to the point that I could at least get it through my talk. I scraped the last few gobs of caramel into the trash, cleaned up the kitchen, scrubbed the last of the plastic off the cooktop, and dropped into bed.

The next morning I peeked in the cooler. A stark white onion diffidently greeted me, as round and pale as a full moon. Its caramel coat lay in ruined heaps on the plate underneath it. I snapped the plate up off the shelf and with one graceful motion flung the caramel onion into the trash bin. Then I got out my old leader books and went to work designing Plan B.

As I half-heartedly flipped through the section on Games and Stunts I pondered the previous night's sticky ordeal. Did the devil cleverly deceive me into buying stuff that wouldn't work, thereby ruining what would have been a great lesson? Did God know that some impatient boy would bite the onion without waiting for instructions? Did He allow the project to fail to spare the kid and me unnecessary grief? I don't know. I wonder if perhaps the apples were the source of the trouble. After all, man's fall from grace began with an apple. Maybe that fruit just isn't His favorite!