In the hierarchy of Halloween candy, there's the obvious wins, like full-sized
candy bars or Reese's peanut butter cups. There are the obvious fails like toothbrushes, pennies, and the homemade cookies that are probably delicious but that your parents will inevitably throw out for fear your next-door neighbor is a child-hating poisoner. And then there's the candy you're always excited about finding within the confines of your pillowcase, even though it actually, when you think about it, doesn't taste that great.
1. Pixy Stix
This tube of technicolor grain rots teeth, gets everywhere, and leaves your tongue looking like a science experiment. Parents hated it, children loved it. You were always stoked when someone was forward thinking enough to hand out Cocaine for Kids.
2. Candy Corn
Candy Corn has a difficult to define taste all it's own, and a waxy texture not produced in nature. But it's the unicorn of candy, available for just a few weeks in October before disappearing from shelves. Plus, it's fun to see if you can bite the pieces off right where the color changes.
3. Smarties
Smarties are boring. Little, mundane tablets whose flavor is neither offensive nor exciting, Smarties speak to the way children romanticize the mundane parts of adulthood. How many times has a kid popped one and pretended they were taking an aspirin, because the very act of taking aspirin seemed somehow grown-up and important? Turns out, getting a headache wasn't the orgy of maturity we hoped it would be.
4. Wax Teeth
Remember when eating wax seemed like a really good idea? These things were tailor-made for hammy photo shoots and chasing your brother around.
5. Ringpops
Ringpops were the ultimate in self control. How long could you flaunt your bling before you reduced it to a nubbin, half of which constituted a sticky oil spill across you knuckles? Not to mention, how fabulous did you look? But you're still Jenny from the block.
