A Pillow Case Full of Emotional Maturity, and Some Bit-O-Honeys

I really don't want to upset you, but politicians are just a bunch of fakes. Dubious, opportunistic, dishonest flim-flammers. There, I said it.

The same lessons that my parents gleaned from, say, Watergate and Vietnam, were thrust upon me on a chilly October night. The mayor lived down the street from me when I was a kid, and I witnessed his Boss Tweed-esque power grabs and shameless vote-mongering firsthand. And I think he tossed some gerrymandering in there, to boot.

Now, I don't intend to slander the man. I'm just angling for some moderate smearing here. Look, being the mayor of a mid-sized suburban city has gotta be a little trying. I'm sure he had his hands full, what with the intricacies of public park lawn mowing schedules, worrying if the height of the new Perkins sign jibed with zoning laws, and trying to stop kids from climbing the water tower near the middle school. So, I would allow a little duplicity on his part. But he distinctly targeted the youth of my town to sway our parents' votes. Bear witness, and prepare to have your faith in human decency shaken to its very foundation.

While he was in office, and especially in a year where he was running for re-election, he gave every trick-or-treater a Baby Ruth bar. I want to be absolutely clear on this issue: we are not talking about the "Fun-Size" Baby Ruth here. Nay. He would dispense full-sized Baby Ruth bars.

For added clarification, I'm not referring to the "King-Sized" ones, because they didn't have those when I was younger. And for the record, may I also take issue with the term "Fun-Size"? Is it "fun" to be given exactly .59 ounces of candy, and no more? Really, the current "King-Sized" candy bars should be called "Fun-Sized," and then "King-Sized" can be preserved for the day they make a Zagnut the size of the Moai heads on Easter Island. Then just call the tiny Baby Ruth bars "Thoroughly Insulting-Sized," and be done with it.

These distinctions are important, because a few years back, America's fine candymakers went crazy with the endless candy iterations. You had Kit Kats' "Big Kats," that were so ridiculously huge, they were often, tragically, mistaken for railroad ties. The problem in blowing up a Kit Kat to DeLuisian proportions is that it throws off the delicate balance of chocolate and sweetened fiberglass insulation strips that makes the candy so beloved in the first place.

Reese's Cups tried the same thing, with their "Big Cup," which, aside from sounding mildly inappropriate, also saddled you with way too much peanut butter. By around bite number three -- or, as it is known in candy circles, bite "tha-three" -- the filling took on the consistency of tub grout. Then you had a life-threatening peanut butter wad in your throat. I can't help but think that H. B. Reese's original mission statement for his company did not involve smothering the loyal consumer with four pounds of peanut butter.

But these Wonka-bees couldn't be stopped, not when there were scads of ways to mutate candy. They unleashed the "reverse" Reese's Cup, which was peanut butter on the outside, and chocolate creme on the inside. Patently unnecessary. Maybe someone will make grillable dough patties, and you can slap them in between two refrigerated slices of burger. Then, put your pants on backwards, dress your children as animals, and hot-glue your television to the ceiling, just to complete the illusion. This is candy, folks, not some bizarre sensory-depravation experiment.

Then there's the white chocolate Reese's Cup, which I guess was made specifically for a high-society dinner party, since the pre-existing Reese's Cups clashed with Lady Dorrington's Persian throw pillows. Really, why stop there, Reese's mad scientists? Why not paint tiny goatees on a Reese's Cup and call them Rafael Cups: Reese's Cups' Long Lost, Presumed Dead Evil Twin Brother? Or introduce Reese's Bleeding Cups, and pump a couple ounces of stage blood in there, so America's children can pretend they're a cast member from "Red Dawn," and eating a fistful of fresh deer meat?

It has to stop somewhere, yes? The laundromat near my apartment, while lacking the one cosmically unifying laundromat device -- a Ms. Pac-Man machine -- does have a vending machine with, honestly, six different varieties of Skittles. Tropical Punch. Sour. Original Gangsta Skittles. Cran-Banana-Berry-tastic. Gravy-Dipped. Heroes of the French-Indian War Flavored Skittles.

The endless tampering with time-tested foodstuffs calls to mind the Cap'n Crunch offshoot called, "Oops! All Berries!" It's really encouraging that Quaker Oats responded to the overwhelming demand for a berry-centric breakfast cereal, but why do they feel the need to have an actual explanation for the product's existence? And why must said explanation involve some sort of factory mishap? Especially one that appears to be a major processing snafu at the Crunch Berries sorting facility in White Plains, New York.

"Yipes! Shift supervisor Randy McClellan forgot to properly lubricate the Hydraulic Berry Dispenser! We could start over, but our CEO is a diminutive sea captain, and his mind has been warped by scurvy! So now our egregious error is a cereal!"

"Uh-oh! Our vice-president Trent Connersly just found out that his wife is leaving him for a younger man! And that means he's on the booze again! Cap'n would fire Trent, but he saved the then-Petty Offic'r Crunch's life during the war! Nonetheless, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the by-product of Connersly's precipitous slide into self-destruction!"

"Yowza! We have absolutely no idea how to safely package food! We're just making this up as we go along, people! Your very purchase is a gamble with mortality! Therefore, enjoy our new Cap'n Crunch's 'Oops! All Glass Shards!' Cereal!"

So, yeah... the town's mayor lived just down the street, and every year he'd give us the large Baby Ruth bars. It wouldn't have seemed odd, save for the first Halloween following his defeat in the mayoral election. That year, due to either campaign overspending, or, more likely, sheer spite towards the good people of warm and cheerful Centerville, he handed out tiny boxes of Boston Baked Beans.

Boston Baked Beans are not actual beans, nor are they baked. They're candy-coated peanuts. And they are made by a candy company based out of Chicago. So I guess Half-Assed, No-Chocolate-Having M&M's From Northern Illinois wouldn't fit on the box.

There I stood, my homemade mummy costume -- a couple rolls of Charmin single-ply -- blowing in tatters down the street, my feet cold from traipsing through dewy lawns. From now on, things would be different. Confusing, frustrating, and far too big for me to comprehend.

The harvest moon hung bloated and orange in the night sky. Somewhere, a dog barked. And the American two-party political system creaked forward, unbeknownst to the nameless, faceless horde.

And elsewhere, in a darkened office, an old man dreamt of a Junior Mint the size of a hubcap. And he laughed, long and hard.