Halloween Candy: the Good, the Bad and the Meh

@joelmw Chalkiness has no place in candy. Same with those nasy hearts on Valentine's day.

@darksaber99999 I'll agree the hearts are nasty. Necco Wafers, however, have a unique and not too sweet flavor. I'll trade you my candy corn for these.

@joelmw These are a crime against candy.

@bluedyn No love for the Neccos? Okay, okay, everyone gimme your Neccos. I'll take one for the team. Because that's the kind of guy I am.

@joelmw Necco Wafers?? I thought these were universally hated.

@joelmw I'm with you on these. My theory: there is the right scenario to enjoy all types of candy.

@pitamuffin I guess I'm that guy. ;-p

@joelmw - I'm with you, I love them. All except the black ones, I toss those.

@KDemo I like the black ones too.

@KDemo Send them my way. Those and the brown (root beer) flavored ones are my favorites.

@joelmw My godmother worked for Necco when I was growing up. Necco wafers were a favorite. Still got a taste for 'em.

@joelmw Another love of them here. Occasionally I'll splurge for the all chocolate pack.

@Cinoclav All this talk is making me want to go clear out the Necco section at the Dollar store.

@joelmw I'm highly disturbed at #1 on this list. http://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/the-worst-halloween-candies-to-get-trick-or-treating

@Cinoclav The people who make these lists. Oy. Sure, guys, go ahead and try to convince us that one of Halloween's most epic candies is worse than an apple with razors in it. They've got Mounds and Almond Joy in the list too. I think these guys think they're funny. I just think they're desperate for attention.

@joelmw The only thing that could possibly put them on the list: Necco wafers with razor blade shards baked in.

@KDemo Whoa, whoa, WHOA!

@nadroj Ha. I didn't see yours, so it's funny to me that we posted the same thing but judged slightly differently. I might even give you a star, damnit. See below. I think it totally sucks. But I admit, I will sometimes still eat it. Not always though.

@joelmw I like to eat fistfulls of candy corn at a time. Same with candy corn M & M's!

@darksaber99999 M&M's maybe. I'm starting to see a disturbing pattern here. ;-)

@joelmw Lewis Black sums up candy corn

@JonT Yes. I don't always agree with him, but I'm pretty sure that Lewis Black is my spirit animal. Or, well, at least one of the dominant voices in my head.

They aren't the absolute worst candy, but they do have the worst looks to taste ratio. How can something so beautiful, bright and cheerfully coloured taste like THAT?!

@joelmw But real talk...I kinda like candy corn. I know it's kinda gross but I still like it.

@JonT This is a safe place. I forgive you.

@joelmw My dog goes nuts for the caramel apple flavored candy corn.

@moondrake You gotta love that about dogs: that they love things that aren't fit for human consumption. ;-)

@joelmw At least it looks like corn when it's stacked

@Bingo

@Bingo I've seen that picture before. Every single time I say to myself, "Self - What the hell kind of corn is bright orange on the inside? Does it come from Chernobyl?"

@Cinoclav Indian Corn!

@Bingo No. Not fluorescent orange! I actually like Candy Corn (and it's waxy cousin - the Candy Pumpkin).

@Bingo Aside from Lewis Black telling us what's wrong with it, that might be the best candy corn thing I've ever seen (and, really, we more heard than saw Lewis).

@Cinoclav I think you're onto something there.

@joelmw We got a bag of Jelly Belly candy corn this year at an early trick-or-treat even. Hmmm...brand-name candy corn...gotta be better, right? Wrong! Still nasty. Whyyyyyyy?!!!!!

@joelmw I have to slot this into my meh-level candy. I never seek it out, but it's just corn syrup and crappy industrial vanillin, like just about every candy that isn't chocolate or citric. Also, I do play the "everyone hates these so there's more for me" strategy with them.

@joelmw Second-tier candy, not bad though.

@joelmw If you're going to rip out my sealants, you had better be worth it, and Tootsie Rolls are not worth it.

@joelmw Mmm, I love the flavored Tootsie Rolls. Vanilla, lime, lemon...

@The_Baron I love Mary Janes. I know everyone else hates them.

@The_Baron We've always done chocolate (Snickers, Mounds, etc.) with a cheaper chaser (like Tootsie Roll stuff).

@joelmw I like Tootsie Rolls, good mix with the variety.

@The_Baron Yeah, Tootsie Rolls work.

@joelmw I thought Chick-O-Stick was the trailer park version.

@joelmw This is my favorite candy. And no, it's not chocolate - it's chocolate around crispety, crunchety peanut butter! Nothing like it!

@nadroj LOL (and, literally, I did). Maybe Chick-O-Stick is Camaro-on-blocks, couch-and-beer-cans-on-the-porch, wife-beater trailer park and Butterfinger is trailer park all dressed up nice.

@joelmw Get out. Butterfingers are dope, son.

@darksaber99999 Yeah, the insides just seem like hollow sugar and yet they demonically stick to my teeth. But, yaknow, more for you means less for me. :-)

@joelmw Sticking to my teeth means I still taste it several minutes later. How kind of Nestle to do this.

@darksaber99999 Yes, um, how kind of them. ;-)

@nadroj Are those any good?

@darksaber99999 They're everything that's Butterfinger without the chocolate. At least that's how I see them. I hate them, so I'm guessing, based on our streak here, that you'd like them.

@joelmw Hmmm it looks like Amazon sells them by the tub... interesting...

@darksaber99999 They're similar to Butterfingers without the choco-coating. Somewhat peanutbuttery but not really.

@joelmw Butterfingers work if you mash them up and mix them w/ a scoop of ice cream.

@nadroj I love Chick-O-sticks. I haven't had one in sooo long. I think they're way way better than butterfingers, but to be honest I don't know if my teeth could handle either at this point.

@nadroj I haven't seen a chick-o-stick in years. I love them. So much.

@joelmw WE'RE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE.

@nadroj - They sell Chick-O-sticks around here somewhere. One of my coworkers buys some every year to use in her sweet potato recipe. I never saw the need to sweeten sweet potatoes, but Chick-O-sticks are great on their own.

@KDemo I see them most often at the dollar stores.

@joelmw My trailer park days are obviously an influence on me, I love Butterfinger and Chick-O-Sticks.

@ceagee Only because: ice cream (and latent chocolate).

@jsh139 But we should be friends. Every time I have a Butterfinger I can give it to you and I'll be doing us both a favor.

@iluvmingos My trailer park days are an influence on me too. That's why I don't like them.

@joelmw Two words: Butterfinger Blizzard

@Cinoclav One word: meh. ;-)

@joelmw We just had six trick-or-treaters and two of them said, "Oh, boy, Butterfingers," and grabbed them.

@pooflady Kids. What do they know? ;-)

@joelmw They're good, but I wish I could eat them faster.

@darksaber99999 I eat them pretty darned fast.

@joelmw I can't eat a Baby Ruth without thinking of this:

@jsh139 I need to watch that movie again. But just one more reason to love the Ruth.

@joelmw @jsh139 Actually this is more the classic movie for Baby Ruth:

@joelmw Good candy but the tagline bothered me. "Almond Joy's got nuts. Mounds don't." Are Mounds made with mock coconut?

@nadroj I was gonna find that ad. I loved that ad. And the interwebs tells me (and I sorta already knew this) that the coconut isn't a "nut" exactly. It's a "dry drupe," whatever the fuck a dry drupe is.

@nadroj This is actually a more recent version, but it'll do:

@joelmw but... but... but.. the almond is also a drupe

@nadroj Well there goes that theory. Okay, but my youth is full of happy lies. I'd already come to terms with this fact.

@nadroj Yeah, I thought the whole with not/without nut referred to the almond. Not the coconut.

@bluedyn Even as a child, I understood their message, so maybe it bothers me more than it should.

@nadroj All I know for sure is a candy bar called "Mounds" is in no way something I want to eat. Especially since as a kid my job was to clean up dog "piles" in the backyard.

@bluedyn Aw, c'mon, who doesn't like to nibble on some mons?

@bluedyn Despite the sort of thing I'm maybe known for posting, I'm skeered to look for any pictures while I'm online at work.

@joelmw I love almost anything coconut, so Almond Joys are probably my very favorite candy. I wish I had one right now.

@joelmw You know what would really rock? If they made Almond Joy with the same dark chocolate they use for Mounds!

@tightwad That would rock.

@tightwad We eat these. Several times a week. It still hasn't gotten old.

@JonT I've posted this elsewhere. This is the one chocolate bar I'd rather have than the Sea Salt and Almonds. They just don't have them everywhere. Yeah, I know, we should buy them online. I think where I posted them was in the product wish thread.

@joelmw With this brand you get a love poem too. It's very good chocolate:

@ceagee that stuff is really good, but I had one of these a while ago and it was really amazingly good:

@ceagee Alas, not gluten-free. I had wanted to try these. Sigh.

@joelmw DAMN! I didn't know I could get my endangered species in chocolate form. NOM NOM NOM

I like these but I wouldn't hand them out for Halloween. wrong audience

@nadroj Awwww yiss, those are awesome but I like these more:

@JonT I love those, but don't let myself eat them very often, because I'm sure it must be the same thing as snorting coke.

@joelmw damn, I would always eat a bunch at a time. According to a semi-questionable source: In comparison with the 95 milligrams in 1 cup of brewed coffee, a 28-bean serving of dark chocolate-covered coffee beans contains 336 milligrams of caffeine.

@bluedyn Try Bounty. Just like Mounds, but more coconut and less sugar. Not as easy to find as Mounds but a nice prize when they turn up. Available in milk or dark chocolate.

@The_Baron mr. Goodbar is the best of these.

@darksaber99999 darksaber99999 I used to like Krackel and Goodbar and the regulars were tolerable. Now they seem less like chocolate than Tootsie Rolls. I'd rate the whole assortment meh. And they're not even quite snack size. Meh, very meh.

@joelmw The size is okay for these if you have enough. My grandparents used to keep a big dish of these in their living room, and I spent many Christmases eating one after another while the adults resorted to lesser entertainment like talking.

@darksaber99999 You always have to stock several bags, so they can be consumed by the handful.

@The_Baron Three out of four good ones is worth it.

@The_Baron Special Dark is WHY we buy those mixed bags!

@The_Baron @Thumperchick

@Thumperchick Yes it is!

@tightwad @The_Baron @Thumperchick @Kleineleh @dashcloud So, I probably shouldn't say this, but Hershey's "dark" chocolate tastes cheap, sugary and gross to me these days. Somehow it reminds me of this Rush song (which, if you don't like Rush, you probably shouldn't listen to it, yaknow, since you don't like Rush; I love Rush). The key lyric is "Once we would take water; now it must be wine.

@joelmw True, we made the mistake of going to Europe...American "chocolate" just isn't the same anymore.

@joelmw Omg - You're my new favorite Mehrican, just for loving Rush. Been my favorite group since I was 11. Seen them about 25 times. But I still have no idea how you associated ITIGB with dark chocolate.

@Cinoclav "I Think I'm Going Bald" is just one of those songs for me. It covers the whole range of getting old (the good, the bad and the meh of it). Kinda like the Apostle Paul's (maybe you're not the demographic for that? but maybe you are? either way): "when I was a child . . ." http://goo.gl/7zcQkz

@Cinoclav My appreciation of chocolate--really, like my appreciation of sex, literature, et al.--has gone through these shifts. And, yaknow, sometimes I wish I could enjoy some of the things that used to rock my world like I did when they did. Some I can, but others, I either can't at all or I can sustain the joy for a moment, but then, for instance, with the cheaper chocolate, I feel sick and gross. Of course, on the other side of that, there's a pleasure in rich, dark gourmet chocolate, good liquor, good sex that my younger palate not only might not have appreciated but would have thought disgusting.

@Cinoclav I'm just curious. I was always a weird kid who fancied himself a bit of an intellectual. I love how tight Rush is musically, but I loved even more that their lyrics were substantial, provocative, counter-culture. And of course I love that they're Canooks (I've said elsewhere in the larger thread that I have a thing for our northern neighbors). Sophomore year in high school, in my drama class, I did an interpretation of bits from the 2112 suite. I'm a total dork, it was horrible, but it's still got a special place in my heart and it really did and really does mean something special to me. Much of their music is like that. I guess I wanna know if you were a nerd like me, when you discovered them (my middle brother had a massive vinyl collection and let me go through it and make tapes, I think when I was 13 or 14 and visiting his apartment; that was when I discovered them).

@joelmw Not to take this sweet thread too far off topic, but here's the short version... New World Man - The song that started it all. I distinctly recall hearing this song and it's catchy tune and thinking I really liked the way it sounded. It was when I actually paid attention to the lyrics that I was hooked. It was fast and it was for eternity. Where had these guys been for the first 11 years of my long life?! So yes, their musical abilities are simply untouchable as a whole, but the lyrics... oh Neil, those lyrics. I had no idea that a song could be so meaningful at that tender age. As I listened to more I realized I was hearing it from the inside out. Thirty two years later and I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I've turned to the music of Rush to take my mind off of life, to make me smile, to give me hope. As I've gotten older (much, much older) I've also learned to appreciate that they're truly good men. I loved the stories told in Beyond the Lighted Stage about their lack of partying during those early tours. Their consistent contributions towards charities and their induction into the Order of Canada speak volumes. Amazing music, amazing men.

@joelmw Btw, my favorite song is Manhattan Project. They surprisingly played it at the last show I saw and I was like a 12 year old at a One Direction concert.

@joelmw I discovered Rush on a theme park ride. Here I was with my high school sweetheart's arm around my shoulders rocketing backwards on the Avalanche, and all I could think was, hey, I like this music. When we got off I asked the driver of the ride what it was and have enjoyed Rush ever since. They aren't my favorite rock band, I think probably Kansas holds that title, although there are days when Styx or CCR shove them off their pedestal. But I have gotten a lot of pleasure out of a number of Rush songs.

@The_Baron Mini 3 Musketeers: less anonymous (but not horrible) insides, more chocolate.

@The_Baron Snickers are definitely in the Win column. Milky Way too. And I used to love Twix. And, yeah, 3M is good chocolate. These are all good in my book, though some clearly better than others--or maybe it would be that each is for a different mood.

@The_Baron The size of these is borderline criminal. Unwrapping enough Snickers to get a satisfying amount at once is like planning D-Day.

@darksaber99999 That slows me down, keeps me from eating a ton at one time. People in offices will thin out their kid's candy and bring it in, so there is usually a ton of candy around November.

@darksaber99999 The beauty of them being small is you can eat one (or more) of each with no guilt. Instead of one full-size bar of one of them. Unless we're talking the small cube ones. Those are not worth the effort at all.

@The_Baron These are the best of the non-dark chocolate candy choices! Snickers, Milky Way... Oh, yeah...

@The_Baron So much better refrigerated, or in the case of 3 Musketeers, frozen.

@Cinoclav Cooled or frozen definitely works with all of these.

@joelmw Yep, I have some in the kitchen right now. I also like the generic ones that @The_Baron hates. Yes Special Dark. Yes Mike&Ike, Hot Tamales, Jolly Joes. No candy corn or peppermint. Haven't seen those Chic-o-stix in forever, but yes. Necco meh, but will eat. Sometimes like meh.

@joelmw I'm sorry, but you seem to like the ones you shouldn't, and not like the ones you should.

@joelmw

@joelmw These will pull all of your fillings out.

@jsh139 But so much more worth it than, oh, say, Butterfingers or Chick-ohmygodthesearetoogrossforittobesomuchworktospellthemout.

@The_Baron I have to tell you, I loved (and starred) that picture when I first saw it and every time I come back to the thread and see it, it makes me happy--happy to the point that whatever else is going on I actually smile a little. For some reason I'm proud to have earned it. Thank you. :-)

@The_Baron Okay, I've given this a moment's thought and--not to over-analyze this (https://meh.com/forum/topics/selfies-in-cars#544e5856d07cc258038fabd6) or ruin it for you, but--basically what you're implying is that I'm a genuine human and all of you Mary Jane haters are pod people. I wasn't even thinking that before (at least not at a conscious level). Now I'm even happier. And yet I feel sad for the rest of you.

@joelmw

@pitamuffin We gave those out last year. Most of the kids had never heard of it. We're doing it again this year.

@pitamuffin meh

@pitamuffin But you buy the 3 flavor / 2 stick pack for yourself! (Or uh, at least I do.)

@dashcloud absolutely top tier candy.

@dashcloud Thank God someone posted it. I was shocked that no one mentioned the Holy Grail of candy!!

@JonT Indeed

@jsh139 Um, I did mention the Grail of plebeian and childhood chocolate. Damnit, is no one paying attention here? But these are good, I'll grant you that. Well below Almond Joy, Mounds, Snickers (ooh, especially almond, but we didn't have those when I was a kid), Baby Ruth and Milky Way--just for instance.

@dashcloud So at Casa Pistola it will be Reese's full size, Maybe we will get more than the five kids who came last year.
All in one bunch.

@jsh139 I take that back. Not a Caramello. More like a Twix without the cookie in it. The caramel is soft, but not gooey.

@jsh139 Now I want to try one but you scared me with the shipping costs. Any Canadians here who'd be willing to start trafficking these across the border for a reasonable rate?

@jsh139 I want to pronounce it 'Voonderbar' as all I can think of is Euro Trip and Vandersexxx now. Btw, I'll be skiing at Panorama in Canada in February. There might be a Voonderbar smuggling plan in the works.

@Cinoclav Hahaha. I love that movie. "Mi scusi, mi scusi!"

@jsh139 I live to serve. ;-)

@Starblind I love these! So awesome!

@Trillian circus peanuts have neither the excitement of a circus nor the accidental lethality of peanuts

@Trillian Circus peanuts are evil and awesome at the same time. It is critical that they not be stale.

@tightwad Nicely stated. True. Worthy of their own comment.

@Trillian That looks like the craziest candy bar ever. Like they just threw every filling they could think of in one candy bar. Apparently these are the closest you can get now.

@JonT @Trillian Do note the manufacturer.

@joelmw I am getting nauseous just looking at that picture.

@joelmw I love circus peanuts. They dissolve in your mouth. Kind of like cotton candy, but slower.

@Trillian It's a Halloween thing: scary, right?

@jsh139 The sense memory is strong with these. I don't know how long it's been, but I swear I can feel just the sensation you describe.

@joelmw Yes, yes, yes.

@joelmw Whatever month Meh sells its next fukubukuro, you need to be the goat that month, because @JonT and @MEHcus are going to make sure every box is packed with these things.

@editorkid That would be all kinds of glorious. I might literally sing if that happened. Of course we break into song around here for no good reason anyway. But still.

@editorkid And, guys (@JonT and @MEHcus), please keep at least some of them in packages, because, yaknow, with my lameass gluten thing I have to be careful (in the old days I would have eaten those things right out of the cardboard box). It would just seem a waste to let circus peanuts go to waste. Some of them are gluten-free, BTW.

I love that circus peanuts contain no peanut. http://www.spanglercandy.com/faqs/allergen-information

@joelmw Do they contain any known element that can be created outside laboratory conditions?

@editorkid Unlikely that they do. But isn't that what science is for?

@editorkid I bet Heisenberg could whip up a badass batch of peanuts. Again, you gotta love science.

@joelmw Smarties > Necco wafers, for sure.

@joelmw As a kid I liked them. Now, not so much.

@joelmw I always loved those as a kid. Still kinda do, but they remind me of antacids now.

@jsh139 Necco Wafers are what Smarties wish they were, yaknow, if Smarties had any talent, imagination or ambition and were somehow touched by the hand of God. Necco Wafers are hard liquor to Smarties Kool-Aid. So if you're saying that Smarties dream of evolving into Necco Wafers (with that arrow of progress there), I think you might be right.

@joelmw The US Smarties are bad candy but Canadian Smarties are good.

@nadroj Damn Canadians, always showing us up. (I've secretly wanted to be a Canadian since about my freshman year in high school. We seriously considered a move in 2001 and 2005. I mean seriously. If I'd had a job lined up, I'm pretty sure we would have been gone.)

@joelmw Smarties are awesome in their own right...you have to consume them correctly however, which is one at a time and by sucking on them

@nadroj Um, aren't those just M&Ms? Or, is there something more special about them?

@jsh139 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties#Canada

@JonT I thought that they were just M&Ms, but then I read this: "Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 15 mm (0.6 in)." Well, that says it all right there.

@JonT So of course we don't get this awesomeness in the States because Inferior Candy Inc. has dibs on the name. I've always hated "dibs."

@joelmw Sorry, you lost me here. Smarties are the amuse bouche to Necco wafers' appetizer. A nice little burst of citric acid and starch to wake things up. I use Halloween as an excuse to buy myself a bag of Smarties.

@editorkid Ya, @joelmw, smarties rule! Can't eat just one pack. Dog always begs for one too. "Viele, viele bunte Smarties" (thanks @JonT).

@editorkid @mehjohnson So what I'm seeing and hearing there is "used douche" and "vile, vile, butt vile." I kid. It's okay, you have your sugary wafers and I have mine. It's a big world. @mehjohnson, my cat-dog likes sweet things too. In our house that means fruit and veggies. He goes crazy for fruit juice. And we've been getting these cranberry-buffalo meat bars that he's bonkers for.

@joelmw I was surprised at first that she liked them because they are so citric, but she waits patiently for one every time. She seems to like the white ones best.

@tightwad I start correctly then, but quickly move on to half-rolls crunching at a time. Sometimes I sort by color and crunch all of each color at a time.

@joelmw smarties are one of my all-time favorite candies.

@joelmw Damn Smarties are too easy to grab! Our 18 month old daughter kept fishing those out of the candy bowls. In my head I was all, "Nooooo!", but I couldn't tell the cute kid which candy to take for us. :)

@JonT I like orange slices. But I'm an old man. So I'm not sure if that helps.

@JonT But what I really like are spice drops.

@JonT Love orange slices. Surprisingly, Kroger brand is the best I've found.

@JonT I LOVE orange slices. The green mint slices are good, too.

@joelmw Spice drops are ok, just not the green or yellow ones...or the ones that taste like bad medicine. Red and Orange and Purple are good tho

@joelmw Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're just messing with us. No way you like Necco, Mary Janes, and Spice Drops. No way man.

@tightwad I have this thing about spice drops and jelly beans. I can put up with even the grossest ones as long as I know there's a decent mix. I hate it that people pick. So, yeah, I don't love green, but I can stand them. What I'd hate is someone picking through and leaving a disproportionate number of green spice drops. Don't do that to me, 'kay? :-)

@pitamuffin Believe it. Almost too good to be true, right?

I love purple.

@dave This is the stuff of legends.

@dave Candy stock arrived:

@dave You could have at least got the ones with almonds, cheapskate. ;)

@medz Then I couldn't go trick or treating at @dave's house. I'm allergic to almonds! (And most other nuts, but not cashews or that infamous legume, the peanut.)

@jsh139 Kudos. I take back all of the awful things you've said about me.

@jsh139 My first wife for several years would actually make up little bags of the cheaper stuff (but we always gave at least one, but usually two, of the snack sized chocolate bars with each little bag).

@jsh139 Many houses near us have two bowls...one for kids from their neighborhood and one for the other kids...

@tightwad http://www.eonline.com/news/591273/advice-columnist-shuts-down-awful-woman-complaining-about-poor-kids-trick-or-treating-in-her-wealthy-neighborhood

@jsh139 You give out cool skeleton statues? Awesome!

@joelmw Haha, thanks?

@tightwad That's actually a good idea! Or, one bowl for the kids in actual costumes, and one for the teenagers trying to scam some free candy.

@JonT JEALOUSY

@jsh139 Yep, same here, this'll be our 3rd year. Honestly, it's like $0.40 per kid instead of $0.15 or something.

@dave I never tried to calculate the costs, I just want to be the cool house. Everyone remembers the house in their neighborhood that gives out the full-sized candy!

@tightwad @jsh139 : A couple of thoughts for you . 1. yes, it seems lacking spirit when older kids show up w/ no costume or a lame attempt at one to get candy. I'd rather they be out doing this than getting into trouble. Maybe things aren't so great at home and/or that they didn't learn to try harder w/ the costume thing. Kids are kids. 2. Yes. it's fun when a kid comes by that you know. It's like seeing a friend, and you want something special for them. Kids are brought into my neighborhood because it's safe. In fact our town is small and a lot of people bring kids from 45 min. or more away from the bigger cities to trick or treat. Great ! Kids are having fun, they are learning that there are nice people and places beyond the street they live. They are able to celebrate the day safely. The alternatives for them aren't so great. And in the end kids are kids. Treat them kindly. They will remember. It will reflect on who they are and what they do in the future. Yep. I still remember the wonderful older woman way down the street who gave out homemade popcorn balls and put her name and number on them so parents would know they were safe/could call and see about the item. She spent a lot of time making them. She couldn't afford candy. It was a great lesson for me. It was the best treat around too. TL;DR Kids are kids. Be nice to all.

@ceagee I hear ya. I don't discriminate anyone who comes to my door. I was really just joking around.

@jsh139 totally jealous, I would display that thing year round.

@jsh139 Yes. And you're welcome.

@jsh139 I do that. Little kids in or out of costume and older kids in costume get the good stuff, older kids in no or non-costumes (or adults, the parents acually have the gall to ToT in my 'hood) get the cheap stuff.

@ceagee I agree with all that. And I have no problem with the fact that back when we used to get a lot of trick-or-treaters, most were being trucked in from Mexico where they make American style poverty look positively posh. But most of them had some kind of costume, even if it was just a dollar store mask or fairy wings. Kids are kids and should have a good time. But teens or adults who show up at my door in street clothes with a grocery store bag in hand are not trick-or-treating. They're cheating the holiday, robbing it of the very spirit that makes me want to decorate my house and sit by the door all night waiting for kids to come up the walk. Anybody can put together a zombie or witch or gypsy or pirate out of stuff just laying around the house. If they expect me to put in the effort to welcome them, they need to put in the effort to be welcomed. I'm unwilling to surrender to apathy, or to excuse the apathetic.

@pooflady Right, it's a very nice "worst case scenario".

@pooflady I would love to pass out full size bars, but in the total opposite situation. The population density around my house is 14k/sq mile. Usually it's around 100+ kids that come by.

@The_Baron I bought 108 bars, figured after that you're coming by pretty late or you're a repeater and deserve the crappy leftovers.

@pooflady My wife and I do the same, but only for the last 9 years. We're at the end of a cul-de-sac. One year we had a party to go to, so I dumped two boxes of full-size assorted candy bars from Costco in a bowl and put them on the porch with a sign that said "Happy Halloween. Take One. Be Nice." I was sure that the first solo kid to come by would dump the bowl into his bag, but there were still bars left when we got home!

@pooflady We are a full bar house too. This year the 30 variety pack. Twixt, Milky Way, Snickers, and 3 Musketeers. If they don't go, I like them all :)

@pooflady Woo-hoo!!! We had six kids. That's fantastic.

Or these people.

But especially not these people.

@joelmw or this guy

@joelmw Haha, both of these bring back memories. We lived in a pretty big neighborhood growing up. There was the house that gave out pencils and the house that gave out coins. We loved the "money house"!

@jsh139 Moneywise, I think I only ever got a few pennies. WTF?

@jsh139 But, yeah, I experienced both pencils and toothbrushes, too.

@joelmw But what about these? They seem to be a hit here. Haven't seen any deals on them in a long time.... :

@joelmw We only got like 15 cents, but that was a shit ton of money to a 7 yr old, lol.

@ceagee Those are cool.

Ha. We got toothbrushes at work yesterday (there's a dentist in the mix).

@dashcloud ♪Gimme a break/ Gimme a break/ Break me off a piece of that KitKat bar.♪

@barnabee @dashcloud "Break me off a piece of that Fancy Feast."

@moondrake Okay, but did you get these for Halloween?

@joelmw I got them for myself for Halloween, back when they were sold locally at Ewalds Fine Chocolates. I used to treat myself to premium candies on all the candy holidays (Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween). I live in a low income neighborhood where hardly anyone hands out candy, after several years of getting no trick-or-treaters, I gave up and started walking my dog up to the nice neighborhood on the hill where all the kids go to trick or treat. This year I'll be GMing a horror game, though. The best thing I ever got in my ToT days was when I braved the scary old "witch" house on the dark corner lot overgrown with trees and bushes that no kid would visit. She seemed surprised to see me at her door, and dropped something big and black in my bag. As I ran back to the street I felt it wiggling. I emptied my bag on the street and found she'd given me a black kitten.

@moondrake Getting them for yourself counts. :-) Awesome story. And, hey, maybe that "kitten" was a familiar. "moondrake" sounds kinda wiccan to me. ;-)

@joelmw It's actually a gaming character, a martial artist superhero. But my own beliefs fall somewhere in the realm of Wiccan and Native American beliefs. My ancestry is mostly Gaelic, with a bit of Saxon, Goth and Cherokee for seasoning. That kitten was the first cat my family ever had.

@moondrake Don't leave us hanging, what happened to the kitten!?

@JonT My mom almost didn't let me keep it, she never liked cats. I finally talked her into it, but it was an indoor-outdoor cat and when we moved she was on a walkabout and we could not find her. I always hoped that the new people who moved in there gave her a good home but I'll never know. When you are a kid you have no control over your fate.

@chr I loved Zotz!

@joelmw Me too. I'd forgotten all about them.

@chr $4.25lb. Wish I'd seen this before Halloween. http://tinyurl.com/kea2zj7 40916.1410153698.1280.1280.jpg?c=2">

@daveinwarsh Though, back before everyone was sure that everyone else wanted to kill them, I used to love caramel apples and popcorn balls (I know that's not fruit, but, it just seems to fit).

@joelmw Does not count. Apples wrapped or dipped in almost-pure-sugar counts as candy. Popcorn balls are popcorn held together with pure sugar. We gave colored popcorn balls for Halloween, because they were about the cheapest thing. Burned my hands every year making them.

@medz At 0:12, he misuses "literally" and in a thick southern accent (does it seem thicker at that point?) that might be charming but in context was so annoying that I almost punched my monitor. Out of some morbid fixation (and, okay, maybe a little spite), I stuck with the video. At 1:50 he won me back.

@medz When I was a kid, candy cigarettes and cigars were a thing and we loved 'em. I bet that had real nicotine too.

@joelmw Yeah that line about not giving them to any kid made me laugh. Just the thought of an adult "truly hating" some kid is funny to me. We had them in my day too, but they were labeled as candy cigarettes and cigar gum or whatever. Selling candy "sticks"? Who wants to eat a plain white candy stick? There's no gimmick, so you slap Marvel characters on there to move 'em. Makes me wonder if the Marvel person realized they were candy cigarettes or not when they agreed to let them use the characters. Edit: it looked like a lot of the sticks were pre-broken so maybe they did literally fall off the shelf.

@medz Okay, but he said "jumped," which certainly implies upward motion and maybe even sentience.

@medz I can almost imagine hating a kid. Some kids are awful. But I realize that they're in transition and their horrible behavior is likely their parents fault, so I give them time to grow up before I embrace the hatred (and quite often by then they've grown out of it, thank God). But I can almost imagine a less evolved me actually hating the little bastards. Other people's kids are generally annoying as hell. Maybe that's why I don't let myself hate them: because, since most of them annoy me, if I allowed myself to hate one, I'd probably hate most of them and that just seems wrong. You're a kid; I know you're likely to annoy me; I've factored it in, so I can overlook it.

@luvche21 This is the way some people pick sports teams. Which I was about to mock, but in that lately I mostly don't care about sports: meh, as good a method as any.

@luvche21 @Barney, you're missing your cue! Put your damn thumb on your lines!

@joelmw To me, picking candy is more important than picking sports teams. And most of the time, the color of the candy tells me how good it's going to be.

@luvche21 @joelmw @editorkid I love purple.

@Barney Purple is sometimes hit or miss, but when it's good it's good.

@Starblind Amen.

@Starblind We're squarely in the non-shitty candy camp. But we live within sight of an elementary school and can get several hundred kids through here. Realign the budget for busy neighborhoods.

@Thumperchick Fair enough. Let's say a very very busy house gets 250 kids. A $1.79 bag of Aldi mini candy bars has about 12 bars, so about 15 cents per kid. At 250 kids that works out to $37.50, not pocket change but not out of reach either, cheaper than a sit-down meal for two. More importantly one doesn't save very much at all going the shitty route: Werthers for 250 kids would only save $8.75, minus of course any cleanup costs for the inevitable retaliatory vandalism :)

@Starblind decorations?

@Starblind You and I obviously don't eat at the same places, LOL. I am a cheapskate, I only eat at places that pricey for special occasions.

@Starblind It's the same at Easter. I hardboil about 10 dozen eggs for the grandkids to color. People say, "We'll never eat that many." So throw them away, they don't cost that much and the kids love coloring them.

@pooflady Make egg salad sandwiches. With olive of course.

@Starblind This was a moderate year for us and we had ~250 kids come through. We ran out of candy at 8pm. If it rains, we get less. Our first year here, we had about 350-400. Either way, we give out candy we eat... because we eat it, lol.

@ceagee Egg salad, yes, lots of it. Olives in it, no, not a chance.

That's a lotta kids! (For one goat lol.) Did someone run to the store for more candy again or put an apology sign up, or just turn the lights out? Happened to me once doing it alone, and by the time I got back from store there were only stragglers left, who were richly rewarded.. Had to eat the rest of the candy myself.

@Cinoclav It's good to put some chocolate in your pocket when skiing. And even better if some nuts are involved. Nice antioxidants from the chocolate and nuts give you some protein. It's freaking health food !

@ceagee Wouldn't it be better to put some beef jerky or something in your pocket when you ski? That way when you're caught in an avalanche and a Saint Bernard comes to deliver you whiskey in the barrel around its neck you can give it a little treat.

@JonT Good idea. Better yet, ski w/ one of those soft flasks so you can have your own whiskey handy. Not that I ever did that.

@ceagee @JonT They do make quite a few trail mix blends that have wannabe M&M's in them. I wear a Camelbak and use Nuun hydration tablets in the water. I also carry energy gels and protein bars in there. One of us almost always has jerky but we've found Slim Jims are great too. They have such a high fat content that they don't freeze rock solid like jerky tends to do. Alcohol is definitely a no-no as it tends to dehydrate you. Nothing worse than cramps when you're deep in a back bowl and need to make it back to the base.

@jsh139 Those are like Mike And Ikes, right? I love Mike and Ikes, but not the all cinnamon ones. I'm not the biggest fan of cinnamon candies.

@JonT No, Good & Plenty are candy coated licorice, iirc.

@JonT @Thumperchick has it right. And they're delicious.

@jsh139 Alas, I can't eat these anymore and it makes me sad.

@Thumperchick @jsh139

@JonT And the cinnamon ones are Hot Tamales. Good ole' Pennsylvania candy company, http://www.justborn.com/ You can thank them for Peeps too.

@Cinoclav Peeps and Hot Tamales are two of my favorite worthless aggregations of sugar. And either tastes great with chocolate.

@Cinoclav Don't forget the grape-flavored Jolly Joes!

@joelmw Why not? Got something against black licorice?

I love purple.

@jsh139 That's movie theater candy, not halloween candy. There is a distinct difference .

@ceagee They make the tiny boxes, I swear. Though I can't seem to find any to back my claim at the moment.

@jsh139 It's the gluten thing. There's actually not much that I miss from the gluten-eaters' world, but Good and Plenty is one of 'em.

@jsh139 BTW, I always like to point out: it's medical (celiac). I like to distance myself from the fadsters.

@ceagee naw. Movie theater candy is snow caps, nestle crunch balls and M&Ms!

@joelmw that damn gluten. Gets ya every time. Well, I'm sure your body thanks you for abstaining.

@jsh139 Junior Mints or Jujubes or

@jsh139 And Raisinettes. Love Raisinettes.

@ceagee ya know, those junior mints can be very refreshing!

@ceagee - I'll bet the food bank recipients get pretty tired of Top Ramen and canned chili. Bet they would enjoy some candy. Sometimes I donate animal crackers, just to change it up.

@KDemo Great idea !