Category Archives: Things I Eat

It’s time to take a look at the treats that rank below the peanut butter chews in those orange & black wrappers, the Mary Janes, the Charleston Chews, the Tootsie Rolls, Raisins, Pencils, and whatever other ungodly things people are giving out these days.

This candy goes deeper than just taking forever to chew. Deeper than being a freaking fruit. It goes deep into the heart of darkness itself. This candy is generic. This candy is depressing. It’s so bad the dog wouldn’t eat it.

Proof I’m not over-exaggerating–

I’m always weary of places/things that are simply called what they are. The Mexican restaurant that simply says MEXICAN RESTAURANT on the sign outside. The kitchen cleaner called only CLEANER. The bag of candy called CANDY MIX. They’re hiding something. It’s not really Mexican food (it’s dogs in enchilada sauce); it’s not really kitchen cleaner (it’s blue water); it’s not really candy (it’s chemicals).

This bag has all the warning signs of extremely generic candy. Random dinosaurs– “Predators Return of the Dinosaurs” Then there’s that big 16 PCS, which acts like 16 is some staggering amount, a mega amount. This is the MEGA PARTY PACK. All this looks like candy a grizzled stranger would give you.

There’s the dextrose candies. This stuff is a product of China, and maybe dextrose is a word they use to describe the flavors over there. In America, we use words like Blue Raspberry and Tutti Fruitti. And then there’s the lollypop–I can’t even describe what this is, and I didn’t open it. Looks chalky. The dextrose candies I did open and sample. They certainly weren’t blue raspberry or tutti fruitti. They were hairspray flavored. Like when my mother used to spray her hair up with Aqua Net, and the air around her would taste like hairspay. That’s the flavor.

Then there’s this crap, 3 single-wrapped gummies–

One gummy with a wrapper all to itself. 3 of them. I’d hate to be the kid at the mega party who got 1 gummy while at least the others got 5 or 6 pieces of dextrose. I sampled the gummy too. It was orange and had a bitter flavor that wasn’t really orangey, but perhaps more tea-like.

The depression continues with Marshmallow Pumpkins:

I know you’re thinking these don’t look too bad compared to crap-fest of the dinosaur mix, but look:

At the very least, I expect the faces on my candy not to be cross-eyed. And then you might notice that the candy appears to be sparkling. Does this have glitter on it? It looks like it was something I stepped on and scraped off the bottom of my shoe.

Incidentally, when I bought these at the Dollar Tree, as the teenage cashier rang these up, she paused. She took a close look at them. I expected her to shudder, or at the very least, nod knowingly toward the ironic subtleties of buying gorky-looking marshmallows to make fun of on the internet. But instead, she said “Mmmm! These look good!” Then she looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.

Another product of China. The word beef in parentheses disturbs me. Usually beef in parentheses does.

Finally, good ol’ generic lollypops:

I have to admit I’m a fan of these. I think the drawings of the skeleton and pumpkin look old school. Something feels 1988 about these.

The way I figure it is that there’s a lollypop hierarchy depending on place and time.

Say you’re at the in line at the bank and there’s a bowl of free generic lollypops. SCORE.
The same lollypops as the only candy sitting in the pantry? SUCK.
We used to get our pumpkin at a farm that let kids pick out a grab bag filled with cheapo little treats such as these. SCORE.
But say they showed up later in your trick or treat haul?
SUCK.

Now there’s a question of what to do with this stuff. I’ve made fun of it on the internet…I’m not going to eat it…and trick-or-treaters are coming…

I wouldn’t.

Would I?

Would I?

I bought this bag of popcorn balls in a strange moment. I was in a grocery store where I never shop–a small, non-chain store. The unfamiliarity of the store lended all of the products a new gleam to them. When I saw this bag of popcorn balls, it wasn’t just like, oh hey–look popcorn balls. It was HEY LOOK POPCORN BALLS.

And well, I don’t really have anything else to say about them, except HEY LOOK POPCORN BALLS.

The girlfriend took these photos and I think they’re artfully done. This is one of the things we do on the weekends, photograph balls of popcorn.

I bought these balls back in September, and it was the first time I dipped my toes into the Halloween season. I should have started off having a Reese cup and a pumpkin beer, but instead I started by getting kernels stuck in my teeth. I don’t think I’ve ever even eaten a popcorn ball, and I don’t think I’ll eat one again.

I’ve got the rest of the bag to pawn off on Halloween night to trick-or-treaters (unless any roommates proclaim their undying love for popcorn balls–speak now or forever hold your peace). I’m thinking I’ll give them to the adults trick-or-treating for non-present babies. I can tolerate older kids on the cusp of being teenagers, but adults trick-or-treating under the ruse of a baby is a shame.

Exploiting a baby in order to gain candy? That’s worse than the balloon boy family. Also, anyone dressed as balloon boy automatically gets a popcorn ball. And anyone dressed as Sarah Palin automatically gets an OPEN popcorn ball that I licked.

I try to be thoughtful about the Halloween candy I buy to give out to the kids. Kids can tell when you buy the cheap shit, or don’t put any effort in. See: Caramel Chews. I also try to mix it up with a good ratio between chocolate and pure dextrose. When I saw there was a mega-box of Fun Dip for sale in the Halloween section, I knew I had to get it at any price. And that price was $6.99, which cost more than the girlfriend and I’s last date–a case of Natty Boh and television. But with Fun Dip, I knew could Wow the kids.

For those that don’t know Fun Dip, it’s flavored sugar in a packet intended to be consumed by licking a candy stick and using the moistened stick to collect some of the sugar. The most common flavors are cherry, grape, and a raspberry/apple combination that turns from blue when dry to green when wet with saliva.

I’ve never seen Halloween Fun Dip. I’ve never seen Fun Dip in packaging besides the traditional 3-flavor pack. Fun Dip is always sold on the lowest shelves in the convenience stores, at a kid’s eye level. When I was a kid myself, Fun Dip was legendary. My bike thrown to the ground beside me, sitting on the stoop, eating a packet of sugar with a spit-covered stick was awesome. I could barely believe my mother would even allow me to do something like this. I would be so eager to bite into the stick, but I had to wait until all the sugar was lapped up, lick by lick by lick. FUN DIP.

HELL Yes, I am going to WOW the kids.

Aside from some jack-o-lanterns on the front of the box, there isn’t anything else Halloween about the Fun Dip. Some special flavors in orange & black powder would have turned Fun Dip into a rite in which God was uniquely present, but we’ll just have to accept seeing 50 packets of Fun Dip in one place is pretty spectacular in its own way.

Of course, I had to eat a Fun Dip. I chose the Razz-Apple flavor because the word “diddly” triggers a strange skin-crawling sensation. I can’t remember the last time I had one, but I probably had a Ninja Turtles poster on my wall at the time.

Wait–I totally have a Ninja Turtle poster on my wall now–a very small poster, which makes it okay. Further making it okay is that I like Ninja Turtles in a completely appropiate way. (There are adults that like Ninja Turtles in inappropiate ways. There are message boards. It’s material worthy of entirely different post. Case studies.) I have relationships with real humans. In fact, me and the girlfriend’s first date was that stupid-but-not-awful CGI Turtles movie from 3 years ago. From Ninja Turtles to Natty Boh.

But back to Fun Dip–here are my immediate thoughts: my doctor and dentist would be very unhappy if they knew what I was doing. You know how when you meet a new doc and you have to go through the questionaire, and they ask if you do “street drugs”? This makes me feel like I should say yes. The blue sugar is burning my throat. Razz Apple Magic Dip tastes vaguely of pool water–chemically. I don’t like re-dipping the stick in the sugar. It’s like eating granulated saliva. Still, I lick up the entire packet. It’s addictive. I need more. I can’t stop. The Lik-a-stick has a pleasant, chalky taste, much like candy cigarettes. Very thirst-inducing. My gums are hurting–almost pulsing.

Here’s something I learned–the Lik-a-Stick can also be used as chalk. Now I feel good about my digestive tract. (And it feels good about the ramen noodle/Tastykake combo I had for dinner.)

Here’s another thing I learned–there’s a petition online for Fun Dip to add another stick.

We, the Fun Dip-loving citizens of the world, have chosen to take action with this petition to fix one of the world’s greatest problems. While Fun Dip may appear to be the perfect candy of choice, it is not. It has one major flaw, one achilles heel so huge, that it often ruins a Fun Dip experience.

People buy their Fun Dip most often in the triple packs, which contain three different flavors. Unfortunately, the penny pinching head honchos at Nestle decided to only give us two sticks to eat our delicious flavored sugar, not three. This is an outrage and an embarrassment for the entire company of Nestle, even their pet dogs! It leads to an amazing predicament:

One can:

a] Use one stick for one flavor, then one stick to use the other two…this brings about the problem of not only mixing flavors, but also forces you to eat two flavors right in a row, or else the stick gets all weird and gross and dry

b] Use the two sticks, then be left without a stick for their final flavor…this forces one to either tip the bag and pour the sugar into their mouth [which leads to a messy shirt and too much sugar entering your mouth at once], or using their finger, making that finger the flavor that you eat for the rest of the day

This is ridiculous, and change is needed. In case Nestle didn’t know, in the United States, we pride ourselves on freedom, democracy, and the right to have the proper amount of white sticks for our Fun Dip damnit!

In closing, Nestle, unless you hate America, give us a third stick…we demand it! USA! USA! USA!

Whoever wrote that is a genius and my hero. It’s also clear they have an inappropiate relationship with Fun Dip. Just for the hell of it though, let’s all join in. USA! USA! USA!