What Kind of Candy Test?

It's Halloween, and before we all collectively raid our children's stashes for those coveted Almond Joys, Twix bars and Snickers, it's time to play everyone's favorite hypothetical, "What kind of candy are you?" test.

We'll get the big guns out of the way. 

Donald Trump:  "If I were a candy bar, I'd be huge, wildly popular, the most amazing candy you've ever seen." 

The researchers here at Chocolate For Your Brain know candy, and you sir, are a Payday.  Why?  Because no one wants one, no one's happy to see it in their candy stash, it's a bit nutty with a goey indeciperable center, but for some reason, it persists and pretends to be a confection everybody loves.  Even the slogan, "Everybody loves a payday." feels like a forced mantra, something the people who manufacture paydays would like everyone to believe, but again, no one has ever sighted anyone eating an actual payday.   Further, no one has ever admitted to having consumed one.

Hillary Clinton:  100 Grand.  Why?  Because she's crispy on the inside, and everyone knows it.  Also, she'd like to think she's got big clout, but 100 Grand doesn't go as far as it used to, and never became the darling the creators dreamed it might be with their slogan, "Who wouldn't like a 100 Grand?"  Like Payday, the hundred thousand dollar bar candy banks on people agreeing before they taste it, and like Hillary, the 100 Grand bar has repacked itself on multiple occasions in an attempt to garner greater popularity.   It's never worked but really, 100 Grand, One Hundred Thousand Dollar Bar, what difference does it make?

Bernie Sanders:  A Goodbar.  Most people like them when they get them, but they never actively seek them out.  They're also hard to find in the markets.  The candy's rather simple and straight forward, and yet never quite what we're looking for.

Democratic Party:  Bit-o-honey.  They insist they're not wrong.  They insist you'll love them if you just try them.  They have no interest in hearing any other point of view.   Even when you're down to the last of your Halloween stockpile, you won't touch them.

Republican Party: Jolly Ranchers.  They're hard.  They think everyone loves them.  They're always last picked and most of the time they suck, and some of the time, they bite.

Note what's missing?  Sure.  We're missing a Kitkat, a Snicker's, a Hershey's bar and a Reese Peanut Butter Cup!

Why are we missing these better candydates?   Because there isn't anything good on the menu. 

For that to happen, the candidates and political parties would have to give us a break, satisfy, put a smile on our face and work well with the other side, so two great tastes would work well together.

If I sound sour patched on the whole political process, you're right, but remember, I kid. 

The Joker in All But Costume

My oldest son at home does not care to dress up at Halloween. He eshews candy as "unhealthy" and has for the past four years, contented himself with passing out the goodies to whatever trick-or-treaters show up at our home.

Yet I've always thought perhaps it was a cover to allow him to cherry pick the offerings, both before Halloween got underway, and after we returned and everyone went to bed.  I couldn't prove it, thought I would find candy wrappers in his room.  He'd complain his siblings came in to wake him up.  Yes. I know, I didn't believe it either.

Still, I couldn't prove it, and I never really tried.

Today, after we'd been out going door to door, once all were tucked in bed, we found our teenager going upstairs carrying the cauldron filled with candy.  "Why are you taking that upstairs?"
"So they won't eat it. They'll eat too much candy. It's not healthy."

But no one is reaching for this candy. No one is asking for it. Each of them came home, had their stashes inspected, sorted, they traded and each ate three pieces, they brushed their teeth and everyone's fine.  Why does this need to go upstairs?

"So no one will sneak candy. You know I won't. I don't like it." He put his hand in and took out a Starburst.   "Right."
"It's just this one candy."  He had the grace to grin.  

****
Working Title: I Know Where He Gets It

Later, we talked about upcoming races. I mentioned I might bring everyone to see his next run.
"My race is Tuesday."
"I know for a fact, your run is on Thursday. It's not like we're going to hold up signs that say "Yay Peter!" and "Run Peter Run!"
"It's Wednesday."
"Maybe I will bring signs. Oh! We can dress up like we do for Halloween."
"MOM!"
"I'll dress up too."
"I'm not running. The Coach said I should sit this one out."
****

ConText messages...

"Hey Mom.  I need running food."
Me:  "Like?"
"Quinoa, chocolate milk, mangos, banannas, smuckers uncrustables and protien shakes."
"Okay."
"And spinach, and eggs and navel oranges and protien oatmeal."
"Anything else?"
"Some beets, pomegranite juice, salad mixes (Caesar only), and cliff bars."
"Is that all?"
"No.  Water, good pasta (tortellini), meatballs, and sauce, string cheese and mabye Cantelope?"
"When is the race?" (Today is Monday).
"Tuesday."
"You won't need all of this for tomorrow."
"I'll do the dishes and fold the laundry."
"Will you make the bus in the morning?"
...
"Will you make the bus in the morning?"
...
"Hello?"
"Just get me some banannas and cliff bars."

Spambot Saturday 4/22/09 Offering

The Scrutiny of Jelly Beans


This year, the real Easter egg hunt began before April 12th, as shoppers scoured the local pharmacies, grocery stores and bulk warehouses for what have apparently become the latest scarce commodity in these economic hard times; jelly beans. Now normally, no one cares one wit about these rainbow colored sugar gel confections. Oh sure, they enjoyed popularity under President Reagan when Jelly Bellies were all the rage and a brief renaissance via Harry Potter’s Every Flavor Beans, but ultimately, they remain the third stringer in the candy world of Easter baskets.

This year, there weren’t any to be found despite multiple stops. I know it wasn’t just me, as I heard several other parents asking the store staff and calling out, as if they needed to summon these candies by name. Jelly beans were missing. The parents looked lost as they gazed at row after unhelpful row of pure chocolate candies. Jelly beans allowed one to stomach giving one’s offspring as much candy as Easter baskets provide without feeling totally indulgent. They’d get candy but one could be sure, they wouldn’t eat all of it. One adult summed it up perfectly, “No jelly beans…How could it be Easter?”

Leaving aside the lack of theological connections between rainbow colored peanut shaped licorice and the salvation of all our souls, I had to agree.

Those little colored jewels are life savers for when it’s ten o’clock at night and frankly, the Energizer Easter bunny needs a nap. Pour those suckers into the plastic eggies and boom, you’re done. Even better, they come in bulk, and thus multiple eggs can be filled in a short period of time. This is why the rabbit invented jelly beans. He had to get around the world in one night with no elves, no reindeer, he was both the UPS delivery guy and the truck itself. The poor creature needed to streamline if he was going to get to everyone.

Now I know perfectly well why those classic candies aren’t in the stores or on the shelves. It’s a conspiracy and I blame the children. While all kids love finding the eggs, jelly beans rank somewhere above lima beans but not by much. They’d stashed the bags somewhere behind tax software so that parents wouldn’t find them or be in a buying mood when they saw them. I went through the alternatives in my head. We could still fill the eggs.

Some would have money. Some could have chocolate or even malted milk eggs and Cadbury crèmes. I saw bubble gum eggs for sale, but consider that too adventurous. There may be parents out there who don’t mind cutting a lot of hair after Sunday mass, but I am not one of them. I was pining for the beans myself, not for eating mind you, I wanted my filler. But the absence of them made me recognize the reality of the life of a jelly bean.

Check any Easter basket two days post Sunday. You’ll find the foil remains of the bunny and no small number of wrappers from the malt, chocolate and marshmallow eggs. Beneath the green stringy grass, lurks at least a quarter cup of jelly beans of all assorted flavors.

Then, the sorting begins.

Three days after Easter, the yellow, red and pink ones have disappeared. By day five, the need for a sugar fix is still insufficient temptation to venture a bite at those black ones, though the purple, green and orange ones have all been sampled. Eventually, experimentation takes the place of voluntary eating, with jelly bean tooth pick statues, microwaved beans and dissected candy being amongst the most memorable alternatives.

As I lamented the loss of this bulk content piece from the children’s Easter baskets, there was a run in the store on marshmallow peeps. As I grabbed one of the last six packs of yellow chicks, a fellow mother had her hand on the bag. There was a brief tug-a-war, but I surrendered when she said, “Let my Peeple go.” It's Easter and you have to let these sort of things pass over.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Candy Ferret

With nine children, you have some that love salty and some that feast on sweet and like Congress, you have the undecideds.  My almost three year old today, after many months of discernment, has declared. 

She went into her sister's room who for some reason, hordes her treats from any holiday and paces them out until the next holiday so that there is always a steady if slow stream of goodies from which to feast.  She found the stockpile from Saint Patrick's day.  She feasted well. 

Her sister is none too pleased.

It's a good thing Easter is only a few weeks away. 

The Taste of Extinction

This past weekend, my middle son went to a party and received a goodie bag filled with one cent candies. He dumped them on the table at noon, as he himself has never been big on sweets. (Go figure). Giving a quick glance over the sugary pile, I lay odds on what would remain by the end of the day and was not disappointed. The milky ways, twix bars, tootsie rolls and familiar bubble gums were gobbled instantaneously by various siblings and I managed to score a caramel. The remaining rejects reminded me of Halloween bags on Election day. There are candies that have reached their Darwinian evolutionary end and should be allowed to die in peace or pieces as the case may be.

I speak of “Bit-O-Honey.”

I know there must be closet lovers of this unholy alliance between an eraser, chalk and a caramel without the imagination of artificial colors or flavors, but I’ve yet to meet one in real life. When I go to the vending machines, I never hear anyone saying, “Damn, they’re out of bit-o-honey!” I remember the unspoken rule of trick-o-treating; when the folks were down to chick-o-sticks and bits, it was time to go home and count the candy loot. Those sorts of odd confections ranked somewhere below the healthy home that passed out boxes of raisins and the DDS who gave free toothbrushes.

I pondered whether the company ought to consider creating an alternate market, like when you get dumped. Sending a tray of “Bitter Honeys” or "Bite Me Honey" to a girl might have some emotional cathartic value for the dumpee. I bet it would triple sales at least. Musing over the two abandoned sweets, I started to sweep them into the garbage can when I wondered, "Was I wrong?" "Why not try it?"

Had the endurance of this long maligned in my own mind sweet been somehow undeserved? I was an adult now. Ought I to give bit-o-honey its due, its chance to reveal its hidden complexities and value that heretofore my taste buds were too immature and too raptured by chocolate to appreciate? I stared at the two lonesome bit-o-honeys and summoned my oldest son. He and I would try these together and compare notes.

Unwrapping the pieces, we remarked on the not quite beige color and speculated on the origin date which was not known. This was problem number one with bit-o-honeys. There was the distinct possibility that only one batch had ever been made and like fruit cake, the unopened pieces had been traded from non eater to non eater for the past seven decades.

My son fearlessly popped it in his mouth. I watched. A minute passed. “It’s chewy.” He said. Spurred on by the fact he had not begun gagging, I too put the candy in my mouth. I waited for the taste. This is part of the bit-o-honey experience, the chewing without the reward. “It’s starting to have a taste.” My son said, still working his jaw. I have to grope the insides of my mouth for a faint hint of flavor.

I know it has a taste, and that my tongue has taste buds in abundance with the capacity to recognize sweet, salty, savory, bitter and whatever that umani is. I know that I am tasting something but the taste fades before I can ascertain its nature.

Now we could go out in the car and get more bit-o-honeys in an attempt to get a better fix on the experience, but I considered this blind date with a candy to be indicative of the entire relationship, bland with a faint after the fact essence that left my mouth bored and slightly annoyed. “This wasn’t chocolate.” And so, vindicated in my indifferent prejudice, I now turn to other snacks that deserve to be shown the door to extinction.

Let’s talk Fig Newtons.

P.S. Had set up a post on Filet-O-Fish but decided it was too cheap a shot and in less than stellar taste...like the sandwich.

Food Stalker

My daughter shall never starve even if lost in the woods if her innate hunter/gatherer/forager skills are any indication. This child finds hidden stashes of candy from Saint Valentine's Day and beyond and leaves no trace of the theft because she also consumes the wrappers.



By following her older siblings around, she can usually get the prime scraps from whatever they've decided to have for snack. Between her natural cupie doll looks and her fierce toddler will, "Can I have some, can I have some, can I have some, can I have some?" that enables her to repeat those same four words tirelessly for 20 minutes at a time if necessary; she gets extra slices of pizza from her older brothers, bags of chips from the team snack, bonus cookies at bake sales and a near unlimited supply of drinks. All of this was bad enough, but now she's become independent.



The food she acquires through persuasion is insufficient to meet her caloric needs. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack plus second breakfast which the next older brother views as a constitutional right rather than an eccentric dining convention of hobbits, are not enough. She can open the fridge. She can open the freezer, and using a chair, she can get to the higher shelves in the pantry. I’ve taken to putting “boring food” in front of the desired cereals, cookies, crackers and chips, but it gets hard sometimes to find things as a result. This past weekend, her father brought home a bag of apples and a box of clementines. I'm thinking, we're set for the week for fruit for the lunches. Yeah!



On Monday, she found the apples. I'm not sure what I was doing at the time. Maybe feeding/changing her brother, maybe making the bed or switching the laundry, but I came into the kitchen and noticed the apples were not in their basket. The basket was empty. I hunted. I called. The house was silent.



I began patrolling the rooms; first the upstairs, no one under the bed, no one in the closet having a picnic, no evidence hidden in a waste basket. On the main floor, my room was clean, the bathrooms, empty, the study and the dining room, vacant. Panic was seizing me. The apples had been gone at least ten minutes if not more. Downstairs I raced. The main room was a mess as usual but no kids. The kid's study was also quiet. The girl's room and bathroom needed sprucing but there was no trace of my three toddlers or the apples. Now where to look? I came back up puzzling and calling. Then I saw them.



On the screened in deck, they had 12 apples on their kid table, still unconsumed and three that were happily being crunched. The apples were in a line and the three of them were trying to put ten apples up on top. The fruit kept rolling but the oldest patiently kept trying to place one or two on top of his head and wondering why they wouldn't stay. The next oldest was holding the inspirational book open to the page and pointing.


I gathered up the fruit that was still unbruised, bagged it in a Ziplock and placed it in the back of the refrigerator on the top shelf. “There.” I thought to myself.


In the afternoon, the box of clementines went AWOL.

If This Keeps Up, I'm Handing Out Tooth Brushes, Apples and Popcorn balls

Someone check the calendar. I think it’s Halloween. All these companies keep knocking on the government door and asking for goodies. And they’re scaring me.

First there was AIG and Citibank. 350 billion gone without oversight…but, but….Congress is not giving out that other 375 billion without a few more conditions. You can’t T.P. the mall if you want the rest of the dough.

Then, there were the big three. They were scolded and sent home because they hadn’t bothered to dress up. We don’t give out paydays or 100,000 Grand bars to trick o’treaters who aren’t in costume.

As the hours drift by, the bigger kids came out to beg. Newspapers and Porn industries are currently seeking bail out funds from Congress. Right now, all we have left are sweet tarts and skittles. However, an emergency run has been made to the local Walmart to grab a few bags of the good stuff.

For a measily 1.25 Trillion or more, we’re not sure exactly, the Economy might be saved. We’ll extend October 31st indefinitely, until everyone that wants some candy, gets some. We’ll even raid our own kid’s candy stash to make sure those who knock on the door, get something good.

Just someone show up and surprise me by being the designated driver for all these drunken sailors. (I know, I'm mixing metaphores and it's an insult to drunken navy servicemen and women everywhere).

Trick or Treat.

Halloween Hangover

Some kids can eat one or two pieces of Halloween candy a day to stretch it out until Christmas. Other kids impulsively eat all the good stuff the first and second night and spend the next week grumbling as they fish through the dregs of their stash to find and tolerate non-descript toffees. For the second group of people, of which I am one, making November 1st a holiday is the equivalent of fall back day light savings time. We need it!

November 1st should always be a day off, in deference to parents and children alike. Both groups suffer from the toxic combination of excessive sugar, marathon like scheduling, back to back party festivities and lack of sleep on October 31st. Even my toddler has a whiff of stale air about her, like she’s spent the day in a bus station. Getting dressed in normal clothing seems anti-climactic. No amount of caffine or morning chocolate or orange juice can compete with the brain coma brought on by too many Twix bars and Goo Goo Clusters the night before. Moving heavy equipment or for that matter,operating simple machines remains possibly unsafe. Until such time as the November 1st vacation extention becomes universally accepted, here is a worthwhile alternative to consider.

Faced with the social pressures of a major kid holiday, the Johnsons from our old neighborhood showed true class and restraint, the likes of which I've never exhibited. It seems their four year old fell asleep around six on Halloween and could not be roused. Unfazed by this turn of events, they settled down for a relaxing evening dinner, punctuated only by parents juggling flashlights, costumes and shepherding groups of children for trick or treating.

November 1st arrived. Her daughter woke up refreshed and happy. “Are we going trick or treating?” She asked. “Tonight honey.” Her mom replied.

That evening, the Johnsons dressed up with their daughter and knocked on doors, explaining as they went. The neighborhood parents were only too happy to provide the kid with some treats from their own kids’ Halloween stash, and the idea of Halloween week was born. They became neighbors to know, having shown charm, humility and wisdom about Holidays, children and parenting all in a single blow.

Wonder what they do for Thanksgiving?