Please pass the (peanut) butter (kisses)

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Its funny how our tastes change as we get older. Like most kids going trick-or-treating, there were certain candies I dreaded getting, chief among them peanut butter kisses (you know, those nondescript things in black and orange wax paper wrappers), Bit O' Honey, Mary Janes, and anything licorice. And that was okay, because Dad would make that great parenting sacrifice and eat that stuff for me. Now, as a parent, I make that mighty sacrifice myself and consume the licorice and peanut butter kisses the kids bring home. Yum.

Let's face it: chocolate is king. And I'm talking about good chocolate, not that funny-tasting crap manufactured in Mexico or someplace and wrapped in foil so thin you can't remove it unless you're lucky enough to get it all in once piece. (It's ironic the south-of-the-border chocolate is crappy since chocolate was so important to pre-Columbian civilization that cocoa beans were used as currency.) So anything that lands in a plastic pumpkin or pillowcase that isn't half-decent chocolate is looked upon with disdain.

Oh, sure, there's "good" non-chocolate candy: Smarties, Sweet Tarts, Nerds, anything gummi. But the chocolate is always the first to go, the remainder eaten almost begrudgingly if only to hold on for just a bit longer to that Halloween euphoria (or maybe it's just the sugar rush).

(Circus peanuts, however? Spawn of Satan. Yet, I kinda like them, too.)

When it comes to people who dole out the non-premium candy, I'm convinced there are two types: those who are parents and so throw a few bones for old Dad, and those who are just plain cheap. Thank goodness for the former; boo to the latter. You know who you are.