Killing Me Sweetly Part II- Sugary Tooth Extractors

There are some things in this world that even when they are not all that good, they are still somewhat enjoyable. Examples would include pizza and sex. Even less-than stellar intercourse that does not result in multiple orgasms is still better than no sex. At least that's the way I feel. You would think candy should fall into this category. After all, it contains sugar, which is the universal feel-good compound that makes all the right chemicals surge through our beleaguered brains. Unfortunately, there are items in the candy world that take us down the road to saccharine perdition, and often times, that road is paved with the expensive dental work or cavity-laden molars of their victims.

The Gouda today will chastise the candies that try hardest to keep the world's dentists in business:

Milk Duds and/or Riesen
JuJubes, Starburst, Now & Later

I mean... what the fuck? Where does the joy lie in rigid, sweet clumps of misery adhering to the cracks and crevices of one's chompers? These virulent rogues of the confectionary world violate the one rule I have for the enjoyment of any foodstuff:

If more time trying to get the crap out of my teeth or out of its natural encasement must be spent than actually chewing, swallowing, and enjoying said foods, it's not worth eating. Life is short, people. I'd rather spend it living off the nourishment I'm putting into my body than fighting with it before ingesting it. Other foods falling under this category include sunflower seeds in the shell, shellfish that has not been cracked open in advance, ribs, and corn on the cob. It's not that I don't eat these things, it's just not something toward which I tend to gravitate first. But let's save those offenders for another post and focus on the sweet stuff.

It's not that the above-mentioned candies don't taste good. I love the combination of caramel and chocolate. No- check that- I want to drown myself in it. I also enjoy the fruity fakeness of the Jujubes and Starbursts, although they don't really trigger in me the "I'm going to die from the sheer lust I'm experiencing from eating this" vibe.

So even if it tastes alright, the act of eating a piece of Riesen, for instance, is akin to using a pair of hedgeclippers to trim my fingernails. Why go to all that trouble and potentially disasterous result by eating that when I could so much more easily swoon myself into the titillating utopia of sucrose saturation by eating one or two (okay, a dozen) of something like, say, a Hershey's Kiss?

I do have a grudging admission, though. Maybe one good thing about candies like this is that by their very irritatingly laborious nature, they halt the tendency to binge. Of course, my tendency to binge (or eat, period) would also be halted if I had to make an emergency trip to the dentist to have the amalgam shoved back into my upper-right bicuspid. I'd rather just not go there.

I almost convinced myself to concede defeat on my own point, but not now!

No... no... Molar-adhering candies are officially dead to me, and I'm sticking to it, dammit!

Now... where are my Kisses?

An Annoyance of Apocalyptic Proportions...

Getting goods from Point A to Point B often involves some kind of insulation from the shock of transport, be it a bumpy ride in a truck or the rough hands (or boots) of a disgruntled shipping clerk. There is an array of options at our disposal, from bubblewrap to these little strung together bags of air I've been seeing more recently. Those are all well and good. Bubblewrap can be rolled up and stored away for later use. Or popped during one of those fits of boredom that seems to require a form of repetitious stress relief. There is something particularly pleasing about that latter activity. So pleasing, in fact, that bubblewrap might be considered a Talisman.

But there is one packing substance that causes me to go through convulsions of disgust, frustration, and downright irritation from the tips of my toes to the ends of my eyelashes every time I open a freshly shipped box:

Ah yes, the stryofoam peanut. You know, maybe I am just having mental issues with things that pretend to be peanuts that really aren't, but there is something so inherently disturbing to me about these viscious little vittles that makes me want to scrape my throat raw with screams of outrage. I wouldn't call it a phobia so much as a source of unending irritation at their lack of practicality, their considerable bulk in that they cannot be stored compactly, their tendency to break apart and stick to your clothes when you're rooting through them, and worst of all- that squeaky rustling sound they make when the kernels rub together that produces needly little vibrations that worm their way in through my ear drums, tickling the little hairs of my inner-ear, making me writhe in revulsion.

Seems kind of extreme, I guess. I'm certain that this is a little quirk of mine that many people do not share. All I know is that any joy I feel when I receive a long-awaited package is drained away like a plug pulled too soon from a warm bath when I see the goods swimming in a sea of styrofoam. In fact, clouds of wrath gather across my sunny psyche while tiny, silver little blades of fury shoot from my pupils. I am even hesitant to reach in and pull the item out of the box because I know the fucking little pellets are going to go spilling out everywhere, and then I have to wonder how in the hell I'm going to get rid of them.

So I really really dislike these Nuts of The Apocalypse. In fact, I absolutely loathe them. I appeal to all those who have to ship a package to my house to please have mercy on me now that you know how I truly feel about them. I know I can probably do something creative with them. Some goofy craft project with the kids, or maybe break them apart and cover my lawn in fake snow. I can probably even drop them off at the UPS store or some other place that deals in domestic styrofoam terrorism, but I'm just saying that I don't even want it to get to that point. At the risk of sounding like one of those crazy people on Maury Povich who belts shrieks of terror at the sight of a cotton ball, I'd rather not have to be forced to touch them.

Go ahead and laugh. Just... go ahead!

Killing Me Sweetly Part 1: Circus Peanuts

Is that title not confusing enough?

I figured that there are several candies out there that need to die a painful death, and there are too many to fit in a single post. So Memoirs of a Gouda is pledged to do a multi-part investigation on Friday's Leave it Dead column on the legion of tooth-rotting gastronimic nightmares from our childhood. As opposed to the tooth-rotting, gastro-orgasmic treats of love that we want to keep.

What inspired me to go down this path, you ask? Well, as I was swooning through a mental climax that can only be inspired by creamy mashmallow covered with chocolate and cashews, otherwise known as a Rocky Road Bar, I found myself wondering what could possibly kill this moment.

And out of nowhere, a Circus Peanut popped into my head. You know what they are- the fake, foamy, formidably funknacious, fucking GROSS candies that look like this:


I know they aren't "dead" in the sense that my regular Friday entry typically requires, but I think I need to work this bit of mental anguish out. To not "leave it dead", but to once and for all make them "dead to me". I saw some of these disgusting capsules of evil dangling in a cellophane bag in the corner gas station just last night, and I had my typical flashback involving my first bite of the pugnacious puffy peanut. It was in the third grade, and the girl at the desk next to me asked if I wanted a piece of candy. Upon my eager nodding, as any healthy child in elementary school is wont to do, I accepted in my hand the finger-like, flesh-colored morsel and took my first bite, whereupon the dire urge to vomit assailed upon me like a pair of rough cops on Rodney King. I remember looking at my friend, grinning sheepishly, placing the entire peanut in my mouth, and feigning joyful chewing with all of the skill of a taster on the Iron Chef who has just sampled a spoonful of salmon roe ice cream. When she looked away, I immediately removed said peanut, now tacky with sucrose-laden juvenile saliva and tried to figure out what to do with it. In a fit of ingenuity that would only befit an 8-year-old, I plastered it to the underside of my desk, where I promptly squashed it with my fingertips, like a giant piece of chewed bubblegum. I flattened it as much as I could, and there it stayed for the remainder of the school year, and as far as I know, for years after that.

I imagine that desk now lies rotting in the bottom of some landfill, but that mutilated, petrified circus peanut remains as intact as ever, holding my DNA like a solid piece of amber, only it's been avoided by every specimen of bug, mold, and vermin that exists in such places. Nature will not reclaim what is not of this planet, I am convinced. And I'm also convinced that the Circus Peanut should forever reside in the Hall of What Should Never Have Been and What Never Again Will Be.

Stay tuned next week when The Gouda investigates another conspiracy likely cooked up by evil dentists. The Easy Tooth Extractors known as Ju-Ju-Bees and Milk Duds.