Halloween Candy

I'm realizing now how much of an idiot I was when it came to Halloween candy. This comes mostly from friends of mine discussing how much of their children's candy they are going to end up stealing / eating.

So, I went about my candy much like I do a meal. I usually taste everything on my plate to get a baseline of how much I'm enjoying everything. Then, I eat things in order of what I liked the least to the most.

Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule. I usually eat my salad first (unless it's the famous Heartbreak Salad) and whatever the main meat dish is last. I might nibble on bread if there's any left after the meal, but generally those are the only rules.

So the same went with Halloween Candy. The post trick-or-treat sorting was usually one hell of a project. Generally I would wander the neighborhood for 4 hours with a pillow case and I would come back with that thing 2/3rds full. I took Halloween very seriously.

So that night, after wandering for hours, I would come home and dump the pillow case on the floor.

I would first find all the Almond Joys, Mounds, 100 Grand, anything with coconut in it, Heath bars, black licorice, wax lips, and Good and Plentys and throw that crap in the trash immediately. I can't believe people had me hauling pounds of that dumpster garbarge around for hours.

Then, I would pull all KitKat's, Smarties, Crunch Bars, and Tootsie Rolls out. These were things I would eat if I needed to, but generally wasn't big on. The nice thing about these candies is there's high trade value for them. I could turn two KitKats and a Smartie into a Baby Ruth and Snickers.

Then I would separate the candy I liked into two different piles.

You had the fruity stuff like Starburst, Skittles, Life Savers, Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish, Licorice, Warheads and put that in one pile.

Then the candy bars I loved went into another pile. Snickers, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Three Mustkateers were my most loved candies. I felt like Smeagol in Lord of the Rings. "Yes, my precious-es, I will eat you in April when I've finished all my other candy."

Here's the problems with my system.

1. There was a lot of candy sniped by my two brothers and probably my parents. When you're dealing with that quantity, it's really easy to make a few candy bars disappear. 
2. Candy that did survive until December, again took a back seat to the PEZ and Crown Candy chocolate I usually got in my stocking, pushing out it's scheduled eating another several weeks.
3. Usually mid-December there would be a purge where most Halloween candy left was dumped.
4. And if candy made it to February somehow, usually it was a stale, melted, former shadow of itself.

I think back to how many delicious candy bars I missed out on because I'm such a strange kid. It makes me a little sad. But then again, I'm an adult with an adult wage, and I can buy a full sized Butterfinger if I want to.