Pointless Nostalgia - V

So here I am, back from a self-imposed three week hiatus. I needed to take a little break, considering I had no ideas. Nothing. Well, nothing funny or interesting anyways. I just want to really define myself as a writer who cherishes quality over quantity. I don't want to be that blogger that posts everyday with mundane, trivial information about the goings-on in their pathetic, shrink-wrapped lives. I want my posts to be thought-provoking, controversial, enigmatic. I want people to read my posts, and when they're finished, they'll sit back and cock their heads upwards and while their eyes unfocus, they'll stroke or scratch the chin/neck area, while muttering, "Ah, yes. A fine point. Well played, sir".

With that being said, here's a post about shitty candy.

I've long grown out of the candy obsession every kid goes through growing up in our western culture, but there was a time where candy was the currency of the youth. Kids would buy and trade other kids for the latest sweet concoctions of store-bought wonderment. Bullies would offer protection for a full package of Bottlecaps and Gobstoppers. The best soccer-baseball players would be snatched up by teams who could offer the most candy cigarettes (not the chocolate kind, but the gum ones that blew fake smoke). The daily summer pastime would be to ride your bike with your friends down to the 7-11, or its bastard rival, Red Rooster (now Reddie Mart), and gorge yourselves on whatever treats you could purchase with your allowance or birthday money. For me, there was one candy item that was too good to pass up. It was blatant in its offering of a no-frills sugar high. It's promise of 'fun' seemed so brazen and cocky, that one couldn't pass up the chance to see whether that proved true. The candy of note? Lik-m-aid's Fun Dip. The powder-like substance you can board an airplane with.

Who were the marketing geniuses who thought of this? I want to shake the hand of the person who came up with the idea of a "no style, just substance" candy. Somebody knew that all that the kids wanted was an edible item that was sweet and made them really hyper for a short while. No frills, no stupid gimmicks. Just fucking sugar. So what do they create? Sugar. In a package. With an applicator stick, which is also edible. There is no difference between Fun Dip and sticking your freshly-salivated wet finger in a sugar bowl or restaurant package. I once read an article that remarked that Fun Dip is like edible sand, but that almost gives it personality, and the promise of being able to make glass with it. And then some dumbass kid's going to want to eat that glass. It's just sugar. That's fucking it. Sure, it's coloured sugar but even that's giving it some credit. It barely resembles the fake-ass flavours that entitle the separate chambers it's in. Is it simple? Yes. Is it fun? A test should answer that.

My friend Maria brought the latest edition of Fun-Dip for us to try, and I was immediately disappointed to see that they had replaced the fat kid licking his lips on the package for three kinds of coloured dish soaps with faces. It seems somewhat hypocritical to change the mascot. The fat kid was an apt mascot, because he was true to the spirit of the candy: No lies, no false pretense. It's just sugar, and if you eat lots of it, you'll get fat. I understood it, but apparently putting fat kids on candy is too cruel, or something. I was, however, happy to see that the flavours (Orange, Cherry, Grape) hadn't been given some stupid candy powerup to become Outrageous Outstanding Rock Star Orange, or something equally as moronic. That's in keeping with the "what you see is what you get" theme. Good for them!

We decided to share one package, as I felt I was out of shape sugar-wise to handle a full, large-sized Dip for myself. We unwrapped the edible sticks of chalk, gave them a saliva bath, and dove into the first flavour. The first taste didn't exactly bring about waves of memories of summers and innocence gone by, but it certainly made me feel a bit younger, maybe dumber. After a couple of dips, I couldn't really figure out what made this dip so "fun". So Maria and I decided that we'd challenge each other to down whatever sugar was left in the pouch.

And that's where the fun comes into play. The "fun" in "Fun Dip", isn't the dipping, it's the daring your friends to see how much straight powder they can handle all at once. The fun is seeing your friends face, once smug and confident, become a collapsed, puckered implosion. After what seemed like an hourglass was opened into my mouth, I understood what the attraction was about: If your mom never let you eat sugar straight from the packet or bowl, this was the next best thing.

And you got to eat that stick! Bonus!