The Flâneur's Turtle

By Paul Gaszak, English Faculty

I love candy, because I’m a fat kid at heart; Literally – I may actually have Sour Patch Kids lodged in my arteries. Since no holiday celebrates candy to orgiastic proportions like Halloween, let’s clarify some points about the season’s sugary delights:

• Candy is the only time when the “Fun Size” is the smaller size.
  • Why do we accept companies dictating a “Fun Size” to us? How’d those “Fun Size” sodas work out in New York?

• There are “King Size” candy bars, just like with beds. But there are no “Queen Size” bars. At worst, that seems sexiest. At minimum, that seems like a lonely life for the King.
  • Twix and Kit Kat already handled the “Twin Size.”

These are Twix…I hope.

• Candy corn is associated with Halloween, but I associate real corn with summer more than fall. We need candy versions of true fall staples:
  • candy hay fever
  • candy influenza
  • candy forgot-to-change-my-clocks
  • candy “why-is-it-so-cold-in-this-house”
  • candy “sure-is-gettin’-dark-early-these-days”
• Taffy Apples count as a serving of fruit. Just because an apple rolled around in some caramel and nuts doesn’t mean it’s no longer an apple.
  • If a person rolled around in caramel and nuts, they’d still be a person – a person you’d totally want to hangout with.
    • Non-Halloween Point of Clarification: a banana split is also a serving of fruit.
• Taffy Apples with sprinkles are apples with an identity crisis. They’re half-Halloween, half-Ice Cream Shop, and All-Carnivale.
• Pumpkin is getting imperialistic. Pie was fine, but it has pushed its way into candies, cookies, donuts, spiced lattes. If you find a pumpkin outside your home that you didn’t put there, it’s there to take your stuff.
  • Our ancestors saw this coming, hence why they started carving pumpkins.

“Gimme the deed to your property…and maybe a latte. NOW!”

• Smarties are Tums that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
• Snickers are my favorite chocolate candy, but what the hell is nougat?
  • Don’t Google “nougat” right now and then claim you knew all along.
• Dum Dums should not be allowed at Halloween. I don’t want to be gifted a candy that people regularly get at the bank and the doctor’s office.
• Spooky gummy candies like eyeballs, fingers, and spiders are disturbing and unacceptable.
  • If I wanted to eat something posing as meat, I’d have seitan.
• Whatever happened to Bazooka Joe?
  • Maybe if he hadn’t been toying around with the bazooka, he’d still have both his eyes.
  • It’s odd that a dude named “Bazooka” Joe has such small arms.

Bazooka Joe

• Why do “Fun Size” Starbursts always have either red or orange in them? Gimme yellow! Gimme pink!
• Dots were clearly invented by the dental community.
  • Dots, or D.O.T.S., is actually an acronym: Dentist-Orchestrated-Tactical-Sweets.

• Tootsie Pops are Tootsie Rolls in body armour.
  • That owl in the glasses is a bully.

“I count the licks, but it doesn’t matter, ’cause I’m just gonna bite this s*** anyway.”

• I feel bad for the candies that are always the last ones picked, like the nerd in gym class. Everyone burns through the Snickers, Butterfingers, Reese’s…and then at the bottom of the bowl, there is a sad and lonely “Fun Size” Whoopers looking like a discarded, seasonal pearl tampon.
  • Ironically, candy Nerds get picked quickly.

• Junior Mints are the only candy you can purposefully eat before or during a date.
  • “They’re very refreshing!”
• One final note as you prepare to pass out candy today: inedible items are unacceptable Halloween treats, such as pennies, wax vampire fangs, McDonald’s gift certificates, and Almond Joys.

Happy Halloween, y’all!