Halloween Candy

The Candy Corn Test and Other Essentials

By Jeffrey Abrahams

Forget the presidential election. Don’t even think about the Christmas catalogs starting to arrive. If you’re like me, you’ll reserve all of your energy to deal with the crucial issue of the day: Halloween candy.

Every year I struggle to control myself. But as soon as I see those big bags of cute little candy bars in the grocery stores, my heart starts to race and I experience physiological changes. First, my left eye bulges and my head tilts to the right. Then my lower jaw starts to jut out and creak to one side of my face. I hunch over so my arms dangle straight before me. It’s something like the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, Igor the Lab Assistant and a telemarketer rolled into one. Except that I’m also clutching discount coupons clipped from the newspaper.

It’s all I can do to keep myself from climbing onto the shelf and rolling around in the Reese’s Cups, Kit Kats and M&Ms.

Sure, it’s just candy. Except we Americans love candy. According to a little online research factoid I discovered, each person in the US eats about 24 pounds of candy a year. Which means I’m certainly eating somebody else’s share along with my own—especially at Halloween.

Once I snap out of the Candy Monster transmogrification, I move directly into the wary adult persona. That’s when I’m in my right mind to scrutinize the packaging.

For instance, candy companies want you to know that the smaller-size bars actually mean more, not less. So the package indicates that the Butterfingers are “Snack-Size.” The problem is, it takes about three of four of those babies to feel like I’ve had a snack. As for the “Fun Size” miniature Snickers, fun is such a relative term. I may have to gnaw on five or six of them to determine if I’m actually having fun.

The Milky Way and Three Musketeers packages have special labels encouraging shoppers to “Chill & Serve.” Chill? Everybody knows how great it is to freeze those babies until they’re hard enough to be used for crowd-control projectiles. I would appreciate it if the manufacturers would offer some consumer tips on how to eat a frozen candy bar without losing all your front teeth with a single snap of the wrist. I’ve tried carving them with an electric knife, throwing them against the sidewalk, and running over them with my car. (The last technique threw my front end out of alignment.)

Whether or not I’m swayed by the packaging, I still face the dilemma of making a selection and timing it right. If I buy too early in the week, I’m liable to eat the candy—very possibly polishing off the last of it in the car before I get the groceries home. If I wait and buy at the last minute, there might not be anything left on the shelves and I’ll be forced to hand out untraditional treats such as individually wrapped bags of bran and cans of Diet Pepsi.

I know the only real answer is to buy candy I don’t like so I won’t be tempted to gobble it up. Several friends have confessed that this is their strategy as well. Just last week, a couple remarked that it would soon be time to take last year’s caramels out of the freezer for this year’s trick-or-treaters. Reminds me of people who sent me the same Christmas card two years in a row because they hadn’t used up the box from last year.

Still, finding something I don’t like is difficult. I even had this problem as a kid at Halloween. Back then, when it was safe to accept candy apples, homemade popcorn balls or fudge from strangers, I’d have the hardest time choosing what treat to eat between porch-stoop solicitations.

Today, the problem of choice is even harder. After all, just about everything wrapped in orange and black paper evokes the fondest of childhood memories. Nothing quite compares to those charged, ecstatic evenings of running around the neighborhood in disguise, hammering on doors and screaming “Trick or Treat” at grown-ups only to be rewarded with candy. Any other night of the year, you’d be hauled in, banished to the bedroom and forced to diagram sentences until remorse had set in.

To this day, whenever I see candy corn, my heart melts like a Hershey Bar left in the glove box in August. In discussing candy corn with other adults, I’ve discovered that I am not alone in my passion for the seasonal confection.

It has occurred to me that one might be able to read the character of an individual by the manner in which he or she approaches candy corn. If I were interviewing a candidate for a job, I’d be inclined to conduct the fail-proof “candy corn character analysis,” also known as the “corn test.” At the end of the interview, I’d gesture toward a glass bowl filled with candy corn, grab a handful and invite the interviewee to have some. Then I’d watch how the prospect eats the candy corn. If they nibble it in segments, starting with the white tip, then the orange and finally the yellow, being careful not to cross the line from section to section, then I’d feel confident that this was an individual who would be meticulous, linear in thinking and attentive to detail. Bite indiscriminately into the corn or—heaven forbid—pop the whole thing into the mouth in a single gesture, and they’d be ushered out the door.

Candy corn aside, nearly everyone I know has a personal reaction to the issue of shopping for Halloween candy. Mary, a teacher and mother of a 4-year-old, confesses that she buys far too much candy and goes for whatever she likes, avoiding anything healthy like raisins or fruit rolls. There’s also the post-Halloween trauma to contend with.

She explains, “The real killer is the day after Halloween when you see your favorite candy bars in huge quantities at half price. And you see people stocking up. They say they’re buying for Christmas candy early. But I know better.”

Other friends reveal their secrets. Robin, a banking executive, insists that she doesn’t buy any candy and congratulates herself for marching past the displays. Then she goes to the homes of friends who have bowls of the stuff in every room and stuffs her pockets.

Me? I’m finally getting down to the hard decision. I’ve considered some creative alternatives to candy, too. But I don’t think single portions of cheese will be well received. And parents might object to finding festively wrapped Vienna sausages in their children’s goody bags.

But Halloween is almost here. So I’m going to ask my friend Jamie to accompany

me to the supermarket. There, she’ll be instructed to tie me to the front of the grocery cart. And like the ancient Odysseus who had himself lashed to the mast of his ship so he could hear the Sirens’ call without being temped to rush to them and a certain death, I will have Jamie wheel me slowly past the candy display where I can breathe deep the heady aromas of Halloween Past and Pending.

Halloween never was for the faint of heart.

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What are your secret Halloween vices?