Monday, February 13, 2012

Necco Sweethearts--neither sweet nor heartful

I <3 You 1 on 1 Soul Mate Angel.

This lead paragraph paragraph for my Valentine's Day Eve entry has been provided for you by Necco Sweethearts. And that's the only thing those vile bits of “candy” have ever done for anyone. The reason for this? Necco Sweethearts are nothing but flavored chalk with a total of six different sayings on them. Yum.
Even the Sweethearts are sad they received Sweethearts.
Please note, that was a sarcastic yum. Nobody has ever said “Yippy! Sweethearts, those things taste so good!” The most ecstatic response anyone has ever given to these is “Oh, Sweethearts... I guess.”

Sweethearts present such a bizarre situation. It's like saying “This Valentine's Day, show your love how much you adore them by giving them something that sucks.” Although I do believe they actually ran that campaign in the more cynical 1940s.

It might seem weird for me to pull a date as random as the 1940s out of the air, but I chose it just to show this candy is old. It's even older than the 1940s. They're actually 145 years old. That means a wholly undelicious candy has been awfulling up the grocery aisles and an entire aisle of candy since the 1860s. Although I suppose it truly is a product of the times, because I'm assuming people back then just wanted to avoid death from sepsis and/or Civil War, so they didn't care that their candy didn't taste like candy.

Expanding upon that, I'm fairly certain all Sweethearts that were ever made actually happened during a two week long process in the 1860s. After creating literally billions of them, they no longer needed to mass produce a product with no market. Every year they just dip into the warehouse and funnel out “new” hearts. You might claim this couldn't be true because the sayings change everywhere and people back in the 1860s wouldn't understand phrases like “Txt Me” or “Lets Fck.” I'll dispute that succinctly—they would.

How has this batch lasted so long? Obviously the Necco Corporation has some dealings with the occult that allow the supply to never run out. I'm suspecting a mystical witch enchanted the batch so they could use it infinitely, but would also never taste good. Don't believe me? Well, why else would hemlock be the fourth listed ingredient, behind high fructose corny syrup, deliculin and puns? Obviously the dark arts came into play at some point.

And as a result, there are only three “foods” purporting to be “candy” that I describe as “chalk like.” The first is, of course, these accursed Sweethearts. Next comes dark chocolate that's above 60 percent cacao—after that point, the sweetness just turns into vapid awful. And finally, there's chalk. Some might claim chalk isn't technically a “food,” no matter how liberal I am with the air quotes. However, I site exhibit A as proof that some consider chalk to be a food item—Necco Sweethearts.

So what should you do this Valentine's Day if your sweetheart gives you Sweethearts? Odds are it's just a test to see if you'll “Let's Get Busy” even after receiving one of the worst presents ever. It's all right though, you can plan ahead. If this happens, simply say “What we can do with this is give it to some needy orphans, so they can have a Valentine's Day too.”

Not only will you look like a compassionate lover, you'll shift away the blame, still get busy and get to poison some undeserving children. Win win all around. Thank you Sweethearts.

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