I have two dragons on my desk.

One of them was a birthday or Christmas present from my mother, who shares my love of fantasy literature and knows I like the massive fire-breathing lizards, even when shrunk into cute little plastic action figures.

The second fire-breather is more of a utility dragon. Between its menacing snout, waiting to spew fire on unwary reporters, and its little pointed tail, the dragon’s green plush belly holds all the candy at my desk.

There are so many reasons to keep a candy bowl at your desk.

First, it prevents you from being lonely at work. People come by all day long just for the candy, and most of them say hi to you, or thank you, or just stare blankly at their Hershey’s kisses as if they were the last pieces of chocolate on earth. (This happens more often on Mondays for some reason.)

And in Minnesota, people are too polite to just grab the candy and go. They talk to you about office stuff, or the movies they saw, or other incidentals that can turn into interesting blog posts.

Second, I read somewhere that people with candy dishes are more likely to get raises. Of course, I can’t remember the source for this information, but hopefully it wasn’t my friend’s uncle who heard it from his boss, who heard it from some guy in a bar.

Third, it means I have candy on my desk that I like.

This may be a diet-killer, but I’m not on a diet. I’m exercising. I can’t make a diet work for me, so I’m not going on one. I just go swim at the Worthington YMCA every day, and put the candy on the far end of my desk where it’s slightly out of reach.

Also, I’m not a sweet-tooth. I like candy, but I can’t eat a lot of it at a time, so I’m generally safe from my own candy dish. Today I’ve had one piece of Starburst and one Hershey’s Kiss. The Smarties and Tootsie Rolls have gone completely untouched.

I could play it completely safe and buy only candy I don’t like, like any type of peanut butter-flavored candy.

But then the dragon might get lonely.