Monday, August 25, 2008
Trick-or-WTF
Okay, seriously. What the hell is this?
Does this candy even have a name? Do we have any indication of its ingredients or origin? Are the unmarked wrappers hinting that this candy is so good, it doesn't need a name, a shiny package, and a nod from a successful candy manufacturer with a popular line of delicious products?
You see this candy every Halloween. It usually comes from the poor family in the neighborhood or old people who forgot what good things taste like.
Does the large bag of this candy at the store even have a name? I wouldn't know. I'm awesome and give out Snickers bars every year. However, if you come to my door with no costume, then you receive the candy pictured above. This is recycled candy from previous Halloweens.
Even when all the top tier candy is gone (Snickers bars, Milky Ways, and Jelly Bellies) and the second tier candy is rationed out in bag lunches (bite-sized Hersheys, individual Starbursts, and Charleston Chew), you never, ever eat the cheap candy (Tootsie Rolls, cinnamon candy, and whatever's pictured above).
Smarties are also cheap candy, but they fall into a special category. You don't eat Smarties, but they make great ammo. Simply construct a bow by cutting a rubberband and straightening a paperclip. Then watch your Halloween rubbish serve as sugary, colorful pellets to strike your classroom/cubefarm enemies. More mature vengeance-seekers may crush white Smarties into a fine powder and sell it as an illegal substance. I don't recommend trying this with young children, coworkers, or anyone you plan to see again.
However, the candy I happened upon today has no use whatsoever, except to give to someone else when a small handout is proper etiquette. Although the intended message is "I am giving you something because I'm nice," the underlying message is "Here, you deal with this crap."
This candy predates Cadbury chocolates, the Mars company (founded in Tacoma!), and probably the Civil War. It appears to have (at least partially) become one with the wrapper that contains it. Should it ever be unwrapped on a particularly hot day, it will infect the culprit and his surroundings like ice-nine. No surface will be safe from its sickening pallid goo.
I'm especially disturbed by the pieces that consist of two colors. Am I to believe that two distinguishable flavors are packed into these sticky heaps of wax-wrapped gunk? What are they, anyway? Strawberry and banana? Cherry and chocolate?
Mmmm, cherry and chocolate...
Wait! No! These are disgusting. Even if that's what they're supposed to be, they will taste like their assigned flavor mixed with Elmer's glue and sand. Do I want to eat Elmer's glue and sand? Of course not. I'm not in first grade anymore. I have money and live in a city. I want to eat tiny orange fish eggs and slippery buttered snails! YUM!
So I will not be eating this candy. And for the record, I did not buy nor receive this candy. Let's just say I "found" it and leave it at that.
BTW, I'll be very busy dressing up and going out in late October, so you can look forward to a repost of this confectionery debacle on Halloween.
