The Candy Conundrum

You know you want me.

For approximately 66 2/3% of the year, I don’t think much about candy, and by candy, I mean chocolate because fruity crap doesn’t count. I admit that when I was expecting my second daughter, I had a mean addiction to gummy worms; and lately I have been craving those since the fiber chews I started a month ago remind me of them. But I checked the calorie count on a bag at Wally World the other day, and there’s no way in hell I am wasting 850 calories on something NOT chocolate. At least Snickers ® has some fucking protein and apparently some magic ingredient that helps you stop looking like Betty White.

The problem I have with candy begins in October each year because I have to stock up on Halloween goodies for the mini-vampires and toddler-hookers who will ring my doorbell. Of course, the stores I frequent start stocking orange-and-black-foil-wrapped nuggets around the end of summer because there simply can’t be ONLY silver Kisses® wrappers from July 5^th until Halloween, for God’s sake. But I’ve learned to control my purchases until the beginning of the tenth month, and not just because I don’t like the feel of an ass that spills over the sides of a chair or that gets wedged in the seat at the movies. I wait until the last possible moment to buy because I don’t want candy that tastes like butt.

If there is one thing you learn from Bloggurl, learn this: The freshest and best candy is found in a bag that is still vacuum packed. This could literally be the secret of life. The bag needs to be still form-fitted around the candies inside, or the candy will be on-the-way-to-stale or already there. Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you buy an air-filled bag of M&M’s ® and find white-spotted candies with peanuts that taste like butt.

So each year, I snag bags of Kit Kats ®, Mini-Snickers ®, and Hershey’s Kisses ® to mix in with the cheap shit that I plan to hand out to trick-or-treaters. By the time Halloween day arrives, I’ve already sifted through the paper sack at the front door for “one more” chocolate-something so often that the inside of the bag is as soft as kid leather. Sadly, the closest that neighborhood children will get to anything chocolaty from my house will be a discarded Butterfingers ® wrapper that I was too lazy to put in the real trash bag. Or maybe Tootsie Rolls ®, which are really pieces of brown plastic doodies and not actual food.

Of course, once Halloween is over, I have to procure some candies in fall colors and then Christmas colors so that the elegant, square-cut crystal bowls on my tables look like I have some class. What ends up in the bowls are those Hershey’s Miniatures ®. You know, the small, rectangular, assorted two-bite-sized candies with “a little something for everyone.” My ass. Last time I looked—which was literally seconds ago—there was nothing in that bowl for people who like fruity crap.

And here’s the other thing about Hershey’s Miniatures ®. Why do they bother to put so many of those Special Dark ® chocolate ones in there? Everyone always picks out the Krackle ® and Mr. Goodbar ® pieces first, with the milk chocolate left for moments of sheer desperation. And then you’re left with a bowl of Special Darks ® for a couple of months until boredom sets in, and you eat the damned things to keep from throwing them out. I always feel a little bad for the Special Darks ®, so I sometimes say comforting things to them as I pass the bowl in late January, such as reminding them that they’ll soon be joined by their pink-, red- and purple-wrapped Valentine friends.

I’ve been wondering lately if perhaps Hershey’s packs something-something extra in all of the Miniatures ® (except for the Special Dark ®, of course, which tastes like brown chalk). I mean, Krack-le ®, right? And “Mr. Goodbar”?? Come on. Terrible names for candy. That shit has street drugs in it for sure. Hershey’s either needs to stop putting so many Special Darks ® in the bags of minis, or they need to add some meth to those. Otherwise next year, some tiny goblins are going to get a whole lotta white-spotted dark chocolate Miniatures ® that taste even more like ass than normal.