Emily's kids enthusiastically celebrate candy day.

November 4th : Candy Day
Food of the Day for Year Goal
Day: 122

It must run in the family…I love all kinds of candy, but I especially love “kid candy.” The real stuff. Is it wrong to be just as happy with a Hershey almond bar at the grocery store checkout lane as with a Godiva dipped strawberry? Carla introduced Cole to Zotz fizz powder candy on her last visit, and while he was an enthusiastic consumer I wondered where these delightful colorful little nuggets had been my whole life.

Sprinkle Pixy Stix dust and I will follow you anywhere.

I’m afraid I am not going to be much help to Cousin Carla...

Hello.  My name is Carla and I am a candy-a-holic.  Like most of you my struggles began in childhood.  Looking back, I imagine the real problem started when I decided to forgo the really cute Halloween costume in favor of shorts, sweat socks and a T-shirt so I could wear roller skates and go as a Roller Derby Queen.  I figured out that I could hit twice as many houses on roller skates as I could on foot.  This meant that I couldn’t go with my friends because they would never be able to keep up, but that was a small price to pay for the extra candy.

Later, in Junior High, I found myself spending my lunch money on Hershey bars and Reese’s peanut butter cups.  I used to buy those giant jaw breakers and lick them so long my tongue would bleed.  Then I would wait in agony while it healed so I could go back to the jaw breaker.  Have you ever tasted one of those things?  They are nasty and crusty and dry, but I couldn’t get enough.

I would amuse myself by going to the movies.  It was there that I realized that movie popcorn was a gateway candy.  It seems like the popcorn is pretty good for you.  You know, full of fiber and stuff.  However, you can’t enjoy the popcorm with out some Bunch of Crunch or Reece’s Pieces.

As I got older I went on to try more “adult” candy.  You know what I mean, the candy that is disguised as something else.  Mints, cough drops, they were all socially acceptable ways to feed my habit.  Around this time, I found out that what I truly wanted was the cheap fix.  I tried the expensive chocolates and foreign candies but I was addicted to the cheapies that I grew up with.  I wanted Starbursts, Skittles, Sprees, SweeTarts (don’t for get Zotz Carla!!).  At one point I had twenty or thirty rolls of Sprees all separated by color in different containers so I could feed the monster exactly what it wanted at any given time.

Through the years I have been able to give up candy for brief periods of time but in times of stress I always go back to my sweet, sugary master.  When I was pregnant with my second child I ate nothing but Milk Duds and Sugar Babies for the first four months.  When I would take my kids to the park I rarely had the foresight to bring apples or crackers or Cheerios in those cute little containers, but they could always count on me for a Life Saver or some M&M’s or at least a TicTac.

Last year I had to chair a large fund-raising effort.  It made me extremely tense to lead this group of high powered, motivated, pulled together Super Moms so I would eat candy throughout the whole meeting . . . every meeting.  Sour Gummi Worms, Good& Plentys, and Lemonheads were my go to favorites.  I swear they could tell I had a problem.  All of my papers had sticky fingerprints and sugar all over them.

Each day is a struggle but I am going to persevere and try to get this monkey off my back.  Thank you for reading my story and for letting me tell you about my journey with candy.  I’m off to the movies to feed my habit.

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Are you a candy-a-holic? Have you overcome a candy addition? Any suggestions for poor Cousin Carla? Odd Loves Company…