Candy Jones

Ah, kids! There's a nip in the air, the cotton fields look like acres of bunny bums stuck up in the air and pumpkins have appeared at the farmers market.

Fall is falling and that means only ONE thing to me - Halloween Candy!

I walked into ::hangs head in shame:: The Evil Wal-Mart last weekend and could smell the newly-shelved candy corn before I ever made it past the bank of freezers.

Like a bloodhound on the trail of...er...blood I made a bee-line straight for the Halloween Candy Aisle. I swear I could hear trumpets, harps and the sweet voices of crooning angels as I cruised the aisle, breathing deeply. Sniiiifffff! I love me some candy corn.

Also near and dear to my heart are those widely maligned orange-and-black waxpaper-covered, low-rent peanut butter Mary Janes.

You know the ones. If ever a house was begging for a "trick" it was that of the inevitably ancient couple who passed out the orange-and-blacks. Do they have a real candy name? A proper name? Orange-and-Blacks sounds like an Irish terrorist organization.

Anyway, I think the reason I developed a taste for this candy is because the other kids - including my sister - would give away all the orange-and-blacks in their bags. They didn't even want to trade for them! They'd just fork them over...like they were contaminating all the "good" candy...Stuck up Hershey bars....

Well, hell! Even at a tender age I knew an opportunity when I saw one! Free candy! I'll take it! Pass it over here. I'm not proud.

To this day I love the orange-and-blacks. And I feel a bit sorry for them.

Have you ever seen the Christmas episode of Friends where Phoebe is horrified to realize that the unpurchased, slightly irregular trees at the corner lot would be chipped into pulp if nobody bought them before Christmas Eve?

"But they won't fulfill their Christmas destiny!"

Same thing with the orange-and-blacks. If SOMEBODY doesn't eat them, they'll have been created in vain. I am obligated as a merciful human to consume these poor candies.

It's good karma. Not to be confused with good caramel. Nobody ever gives out good caramel.