Candy Corn: An Addict’s Story
Every year I cycle through what some people like to call, “Falling Off the Wagon.” Yes, dear LAP audience, it’s true. My name is BrainRants, and I’m a candycorn-aholic.
It started as a kid. A small bag here, a few handfuls there. They were dropped innocently into my pillowcase by well-meaning people as I trick or treated my way around the neighborhood. Later, when I had a job to get gas and pocket money as a teenager, the candy corn jags would get longer. I could drive to the supermarket. I had money. They sold candy corn by the pound.
Flash forward some years, and I’m raising kids. Halloween is important, and stocking the house with good, ‘Murrican high-fructose corn syrup products coated in chocolate is equally important. Now in a career with real income and a good cover story, I could stock up on crates of the golden, sweet nuggets of pure ecstasy. Better yet, the bags could be hidden virtually anywhere. I had go-to stashes everywhere. As ‘Murrica sugared up, candy corn showed up year-round, much to my addict-addled brain.
The inevitable happened, of course. I got lucky because it wasn’t the police who discovered me naked in the hot tub full of candy corn, passed out with a smile on my face. Friends and family gathered for an intervention, and I fought and denied it. All the while, I spit sweet syrup as I screamed from a mouth stained orange and yellow. I was in control! So I thought.
Some people can fall to candy-themed games, but the food addictions hit at the basic human needs. I realized I needed help. My weight fluctuated too violently, and the waxy coating on the candy corn went through me faster than beer and Tabasco. I had a problem.
The treatment regime turned out to be less than stellar, of course. The post-sugar crash, if you don’t know, is a rough one. Being fed a plate of protein is no substitute when you’re jonesing for that sweet candy nectar. I didn’t like the locks on the doors, either.
Halloween is always a rough time, of course. I make mistakes, but self-forgiveness is an important part of dealing with the fact that I am an addict. It helps that my sponsor knows how to use a cat ‘o nine tails, too.
Right now, I take it day to day… which is all anyone can hope for.
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I love that stuff! My kids think it’s gross. Can you believe that??!!
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Your kids need a tune-up.
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I hate it too…:(
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Heathen!
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I’ve never tasted it, probably due to the fact I love in Australia. I had no idea it was chocolate? I thought it was a hard candy? Whatever it is, it sounds provocative!!! 12 months till the next temptation! Be strong LAP!!!
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No, not chocolate, but just as addictive. Pure, mainlined sugar.
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I’m cracking up. I HATE to add fuel to the fire, but have you tried M&M’s Candy Corn? Sooo sweet, almost disgustingly, til you go back 5 times for another handful (to avoid the crash).
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You’re being an enabler.
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Hilarious! I’m not into candy corn per se, but sugar addiction–yes! I actually have a post scheduled dealing with my own fall from grace. People may laugh at us sugar addicts. A pound of candy corn or 3/4 of a cream pie seem mild to–oh, I don’t know–crack cocaine, but the darkness is real! I often go into work Monday after an all day sugar binge on Sunday feeling haggard and hungover…it takes nearly a full week to start feeling better…great post and good luck on your candy corn addiction. 😉
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It is a daily struggle, yes.
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I love candy corn, I got really into it when I lived in the states, but we can’t get it in the UK!!! Well, we probably can at places that sell American stuff, but it’s not readily available, and now I want some! As part of your recovery programme, you should probably send any outstanding stock you may have to me…you know…just to help you…not for my benefit. You’re welcome.
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I’ll have some supertankers full of it diverted. Then we’ll see if Scotland splits off or not.
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If your addiction is anything like my chocolate addiction (I have been known to steal the children’s Easter Bunny chocoate) then it is hopeless.
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I’m good as long as I don’t have any… yeah, I know.
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Oh Rants, I had no idea you suffered the same hellish addiction as I. It was 2011 when my doctor said those horrible words we candy corn lovers never want to hear…”No more sugar Diana, you have type 2 diabetes now”. Every Halloween is like a knife to my ribs, candy corn everywhere, they even made candy corn cupcakes at the commissary bakery this year. CANDY CORN CUPCAKES! With yellow and orange candy corn frosting. My will power is almost reaching it’s limit…. almost. *wimper*
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One way bus ticket to Hell.
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Did you know, if you stack the candy corn up in a circle…and keep stacking…it looks like real corn….Mind Blown!
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Almost like that’s how they came up with the name, huh?
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Oh yeah…
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Oh, yeah. And what about the inevitable candy corn companion – those little pumpkins with the waxy, brown, chocolate-ish stem?
The good thing (or bad thing, depending on how you look at it) was when the kids were little, they didn’t LIKE those. They gave them to me freely. Not like the mini-candy bars that I had to get by tip-toeing into their rooms in the dead of night, peeling tiny, sweaty hands from their death-grip on the precious bags holding the evening’s booty. Like the Grinch taking the candy cane from Cindy Lou Who.
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Candy is unhealthy, so you were just being a good parent… yeah, a good parent… that’s it.
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That’s just what I said when I was suddenly caught in the glare of my husband’s flashlight. I do it all for them!
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I can’t eat them. They look like suppositories. Colorful, colorful suppositories.
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Even a mind as sick and twisted as mine would never think of that.
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As a fellow addict I hear ya, my friend! Nobody in our neck of the woods gives it out anymore for Halloween so I’m forced to go buy my own. Oh the shame of it!
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You do what you have to do.
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The other day I went to my parents house where they had candy corn sitting out in the bed of this vintage toy truck and I tried to reach my hand in it but my mom said it was literally years old and was just there for decoration. Foul language was present.
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I don’t think that stuff will go bad, unless there was a fuzzy layer of dust or bugs on it… or both. Five second rule.
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I was tempted to eat it anyway, but my mom kept glaring at me like she knew what I was plotting!
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Be bold.
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Will do my friend. Will do.
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It’s available year-round? Where? Not that I have a problem or anything.
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WalMart, of course.
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