Recently, my web host sent me a thank you gift for my continued business. This gift was a giant box of assorted vending machine candy. If I didn't know better, I'd think my web host and Dick Herculanum were one and the same. Oh, wait. They are? Never mind.
Its the sixth anniversary of his company, and according to the accompanying card, the traditional gift for a sixth anniversary is candy. So he created a gift that looked like Anyvendingmachine, USA and I must tell you, I was very appreciative. Thanks buddy!
In the gift box, there was some good stuff, some questionable stuff, some heinously nasty stuff, and one package of the worst candy in the world. I'm talking about Corn Nuts, here, people. Corn Nuts! Who eats Corn Nuts? What the hell are Corn Nuts, anyway?
Answer: whole corn soaked in water for three days, then deep fried in oil until they become hard and brittle. Mmm, yummy. Now that's nutrition! Is there a discernible reason why these shouldn't be a staple of my diet, why I shouldn't eat them three or four times a week? Of course there is. They're CORN NUTS.
Here's how I would classify the contents, into four easily distinguishable groups.
I. Some Good Stuff
Snickers bar
Chips Ahoy cookies
Starburst Original Flavor
Hersheys Chocolate bar
Juicy Fruit chewing gum
II. Some Questionable Stuff
Hot Tamales
Twizzlers
III. Some Heinously Nasty Stuff
Tropical Skittles
Salted Nut Roll
IV. Worst Candy In The World
Corn Nuts
I conducted an experiment with the two worst items in the box, the ones I would never actually eat myself. I'm looking at you, Tropical Skittles and Corn Nuts. I took them into the office, set them on the counter in the breakroom with a sign that read FREE, and waited to see which went first.
Ordinarily, there's no way in heck that the Corn Nuts go second. But when paired up with a Salted Nut Roll in a battle of free snacks, Corn Nuts are...they're not so bad. In fact, they went first. This is how bad a Salted Nut Roll is.
Congratulations, Corn Nuts! You don't suck as badly as Salted Nut Roll. This is like saying to the 1997 Cincinnati Bengals, "Congratulations, you don't suck as much as the 1977 Tampa Bay Buccaneers!" Both clearly still suck, but comparatively speaking, one has a distinct advantage in the degree and amount of sucking.
Still, don't get too confident, Corn Nuts. You suck at being candy and you suck at tasting good. About the only good thing I can say about you is, hey, at least you're not a Salted Nut Roll.
Do you think Nickelback had a rider demanding trays of Salted Nut Rolls and Corn Nuts in their dressing rooms? If they don't, they should. One horrible thing deserves another.
***
That said, I'd forgotten how generically bad Twizzlers are. I love how the package says "artificially strawberry flavored", yet the contents taste like flavorless wax. If you're going to go to the bother of altering a food chemically with artificial flavoring, shouldn't it wind up tasting like SOMETHING after said alteration? I can't imagine Twizzlers tasting any less spectacular if I was eating wax candles. They're just kinda...there. You know you're eating something, because you remember putting it in your mouth and you remember chewing it, yet it tastes like a big ball of nothing.
But I'll be damned if I didn't eat the entire package while I watched some DVR'd episodes of The Green Hornet on Monday night. So maybe they aren't so bad after all. Either that or...never mind.
Also, I ate all of the other candies from categories I and II, and most of category III. Shortly thereafter I went for a run at the gym and for reasons unknown ran faster and longer than I usually do...very strange.
You bet.
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