Candy Quirks

I have a few traditions when I eat certain candy. Various rituals, and methods have to be followed during consumption. Of course, this all depends on the candy I am eating. The people that witness these events usually stop and watch with some 'This guy is kinda weird' look on their faces.

I will share some of them with you now...

Runts - they are first sorted by color, and then consumed from least favorite flavor to favorite. ( Lime, Strawberry, Orange, Cherry, Banana. It used to end there but they added a Blue one, blue raspberry I guess, and it now holds the coveted 'last candy to be consumed' position).

Kit Kat - The bar is broken into the four strips, and then the chocolate is eaten from around the edges of the strip. Then, the strip is pulled apart into the 3 wafers that make up the remaining part of the strip. These wafers are eaten then in the following order: middle, bottom, top. Then on to the next strip. (this one freaks my beautiful bride out the most)

Snickers - I will eat the nougat part first, then the rest.

Whoppers/Malt Balls - This one is strange, and kinda hard to explain. Basically I bite through the chocolate, all the way around the Whopper. Imagine an equator around the candy all the way down to the malt. Then, one of the chocolate hemispheres is stripped away and eaten, leaving a full sphere of malt in a half sphere of chocolate. That is then sucked on, until the malt has dissolved, and then remaining chocolate shell is consumed.

Peanut M&M's - These are consumed kind of like the Whoppers. I break the candy apart in my mouth, separating the M&M part from the peanut. The M&M part is eaten while the peanut hides out in my cheek until I am done, then it gets what it deserves.

Regular M&M's - These have the most elaborate system of all... It is a site to behold, really. First, the entire bag is pour out. Then they are sorted by color. The colors are then arranged by number in the group, which ever color has more members, is positioned first. The color with the fewest is then lined up in a row. The next group is then lined up next to it in the gaps (reducing the space between the rows). But only enough to extend past the first row. Like, if the red row is first, and has 5, the next row will have 6. This process is then continued until all colors are lined up. This usually leaves some strays, and they are consumed at this time. The remaining are eaten one at a time, starting with one from the longest row. Then one from the next color up, and so on. Eventually, I am left with a triangle. 1 at the top, and 6 at the bottom. They then get eaten by taking the left most side off of the triangle(1 of each color) and eating those all at once.

I don't know why I do this, I am sure my college roommate with his Masters in Psychology would offer me some explanations. They are just things I have done since I was a kid, and being a 12-year-old at heart still, that how I still do it.

I remember reading a story about how someone else eats their M&M's, I thought it was very funny... So I found it, and will pass it along here.

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round. I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world. Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment. When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes." This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion. There can be only one.

Some one lend me 50 cents... I need a fix after writing all of this down.