If there's any one holiday that can make both children and dentists rejoice on equal scales, it's Halloween. Nothing else quite defines the Autumn season. Right from the start the air becomes eerie and children flock to "World's Largest Pumpkin" exhibits. The chill in your bones isn't quite the same as the one that comes to bite off the tips of your toes in mid-December. It's equal parts "Damn, fifty degrees feels like zero after that blistering July" and "Damn, something is about to pull me under my own bed and eat me." But you don't mind the cold, and the feeling of impending doom is refreshing after months of pure safety. Plus, the candy helps.
In celebration of the only thing that really matters between the end of Summer Vacation and the beginning of Thanksgiving Break, I'm listing the top five candies you should be handing out if you want me the kids on the block to know you're the raddest dude this side of Elm Street.
1. Tootsie Rolls
Tootsie Rolls are the unsung hero of nearly any holiday event that includes children. They come in all shapes and sizes: squares, logs, medium sized logs, ridiculously long squares. Everything! And they taste pretty damn good. Who doesn't like what in reality is the equivalent of chocolate taffy? Unlike taffy, however, Tootsie Rolls melt down fairly quickly and don't leave an unpleasant aftertaste behind, meaning you can quickly gobble up the next unfortunate chocolate bar, and the Tootsie Roll residue won't ruin whatever comes next! It's a total win situation! Unfortunately those multicolored knockoffs have watered down the Tootsie Roll's value by overall sucking and not being worth counting as part of the Halloween Haul. It's gotten to the point where kid's hardly consider Tootsie Rolls anything grand, and when that's what they see in the bowl, they tend to sigh and unenthusiastically thank their host, when in reality they want to strangle them for handing out such trite chocolates. Do not be deterred! Hand the rolls away! Despite the disgruntlement of the child upon first receiving the candy, they will feel an emptiness far greater than that of the space where you once had a tooth if there are no Tootsie Rolls spilling from their orange bags come the return home. The loneliest Halloween I ever had was one without Tootsie Rolls.
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| Heaven does exist! |
If you somehow still aren't sold on the Tootsie Roll thing, consider this: they are typically saved as a child's reserve candies. The last line of defense in dragging out blissful dessert snacks between Halloween and Christmas. If you don't mind missing out on instant gratitude, the trade-off is a full two months of very happy chocolate mouths.
2. 100 Grand Bar
Now I love the 100 Grand Bar, so I was tempted to put it higher on the list, but I realized that it isn't as well celebrated as the others. I realized this when I only received two one year. Two hundred grand bars. What kind of person doesn't hand out hundred grand bars on Halloween?! Sure, most of the time the kids look at them with slight bewilderment, not quite sure what it is but knowing that the red package looks at least vaguely familiar. They'll never really be sure of whether they like it or not, and half the time the parents will tell them their teeth are too little and undeveloped to eat it, but nobody actually dislikes a 100 Grand Bar. In fact, these are the Tootsie Roll's only allies in the war against No Candy November. The 100 Grand Bar's chewy nature doesn't make it the top choice for immediate consumption, because it hinders a child's ability to cram down more of those miniature Reese's Cups with the gold foil, but come the 2nd or 3rd of November, the 100 Grand Bar is worth its name in pleasure.
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| Please excuse the mess, this image is making me salivate. |
3. Snickers Bar
The Snickers Bar is a tried and true Halloween treat and often comes in party packs alongside its inbred cousins: Milky Way and 3 Muskateers. Snickers, however, managed to stray far enough from the family tree to find the perfect blend of caramel, chocolate, and peanuts. There's only one better way to enjoy this combination of treats, but I'll save the best for last. The Snickers Bar has kind of taken on a similar status to the Hershey's Bar: everyone loves them, the thought of having them makes most of us drool like deliberately disgusting infants, but they don't tend to stand out amongst all the other, brightly colored, more festive looking candies. The Snickers Bar has had the misfortune of becoming the staple of what a chocolate bar should be. It, like Friday the 13th, has become a cliche, and cliches tend to be overlooked when surrounded by all the shiny new stuff. Yet they always persist, and there's a good reason for that: people like cliches. And in this instance, you can't go wrong.
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| And if you can, I don't want to be right. [/cliche] |
2. Twix Bar
If you need a moment to finish digesting the last entry, take your time. Just know that you're leaving the tender twins waiting. Twins eagerly waiting to be licked to the morning, and if you don't make a move fast, they're going to dance on the tongue of some other stud. The Twix Bar proves that great things are better in twos, and even those too young to feel embarrassed by my last sentence will understand that. TwixTwix has recently decided to try adding their own brand of peanut butter to the mix, and that just ruins all the fun, because their peanut butter sucks. However, the classic caramel Twix is one of the single most enjoyable treats the world has ever known, and it will continue to be so until time immemorial.
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| It doesn't matter that they slightly resemble the withered fingers of a has-been basketball star, you're going to eat them anyways. And you'll like it. |
5. Reese's Cup
If you were beginning to worry yourselves because you hadn't seen the classic Cup on the list yet, you're being ridiculous, of course it's going to be on the list. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is the single greatest thing to come out of the commercial candy industry since chocolate, and no newfangled anything is going to change that. H.B. Reese, the greatest man who ever lived, discovered something wonderful way back in 1928, and that something was the most glorious blend of chocolate and peanut butter the world has ever known. No candy with these two ingredients has ever even come close to the Reese's Cup, not even any other versions of the Reese's Cup, and that's because this is the one formula that takes ordinary and makes magic. If you're high right now, go trade your weed for a Reese's Cup, I guarantee a better trip. You hand out Reese's Cups on Halloween, the genuinely sized ones, and you will be hailed as the savior of the New World. Children will come from miles around to worship and grovel at your toes in the hopes of getting just one tiny bite of peanut-chocolatey goodness.
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| I found the Holy Grail! Hallelujah! |
The best part about the Reese's? There's no wrong way to eat it! But there is a very, very right way. I'm going to ask you to kindly remember something I said earlier in the article. Go on, remember it for me. It looked something like this: "There's only one better way to enjoy this combination of treats, but I'll save the best for last."
Well here it is: the Reese's Cup. Balance a Twix on the flat side of one of these babies and chomp down on both candies at once. The thought alone is so great that most of you probably just had an orgasm. If you want to have another one, go actually do this. It is freaking delicious.
