Power Ranking The Best Candies To Pass Out If You’re A Joy-Hating Nihilist

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It’s been a rough f*cking year, hasn’t it? We lost David Bowie, Prince, Miss Cleo, and Gene Wilder (not to mention both Big Ang and Chyna). And Halloween already seems superfluous, because its spookiness can never rival the election set to occur just a few days later (even if everyone dresses up as a killer clown). So why even bother, friend? Why go down to the store and get the good candy when what we really need to be teaching our kids is that life is a tiresome slog toward the grave (which may come sooner, rather than later if the great orange bogeyman gets his elfin hands on the nuclear codes).

Hardly seems worth splurging on Kit Kats for, does it?

Here’s the problem, though: You can’t just go around telling kids the truth. Their parents will get angry and call an authority figure and you’ll have to explain why you harangued a four-year-old about the species-wrecking effects of climate change. Instead you have to show them that the world is an unfair place. With candy. Bad candy. These candies in specific:

Candy Corn

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#CandyCorn is gross. Right along with #CircusPeanuts

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These adorable little diabetes nuggets are hated, but they aren’t the worst. Sure, no one wants to get a handful of candy corn (do they come pre-packaged now?) in their glow-in the dark treat pails, but the kernels aren’t explicitly offensive and are mostly edible.

Kids probably won’t be happy to come home with these achingly sweet chunks after a long night of trick-or-treating, but if you’re not out to ruin their childhoods outright, candy corn is the best way to send the message that “you tried real hard, but there’s still going to be a workforce reduction at your company leaving you unemployed for at least a year by the time you’re 25” without actually having an eight-year-old fairy princess suffer an existential crisis on your front walk.

(Best to have those at home. The realization that life is without explicit meaning is usually followed by extreme nausea.)

Jolly Ranchers

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There’s something about Jolly Ranchers that just screams “you’re going to end your life the exact same way you began it — naked, terrified, and without any teeth.” And no one even bothers to warn you that Jolly Ranchers — which come in a variety of dull, faded colors rather than flavors — will wreak the most insane havoc upon your mouth. Kind of makes you wonder why the hell the rancher is so goddamn jolly in the first place. Does he have money invested in successful dental practices?

If you’re feeling particularly generous (read: sadistic), don’t even offer the children a selection of Halloween treats. Present them with a bowl of these monstrosities and let them know that they certainly have choices in life, but that all the choices still lead to the grave.

Dubble Bubble Gum

Not even Fruit Stripe gum comes close to competing with Dubble Bubble where length of flavor is concerned. While Fruit Stripe may give you two to four minutes of delicious chemical taste, Dubble Bubble turns into crumbling nothingness as soon as you bite into it. It takes no time at all to remind you that each piece is made of the rubber left over from recycling those misshapen red balls we all used for dodgeball in fourth grade.

By handing out these delightfully retro packaged — and cancerously-colored — treats you’re teaching the kids who come by that not only should they not bother you next year, but that none of the things that they think might make them happy ever will. Encourage everyone to grab a big handful, it’s an important lesson which can’t be taught too many times!

Old-Fashioned Hard Candy

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There’s no reason why these candies — along with those strawberry bon bons and Werther’s originals your grandparents always seem to have in their pockets– haven’t gone extinct by now. It’s 2016 and we’ve gotten so far in our candy game that these brightly-colored horrors serve no other purpose than to cause torment.

These little circles of hell are inconvenient to unwrap (try it in a movie theater, where the noise will overpower even the best surround sound system), break into tiny shards that stick in your teeth, and leave your mouth feeling strange and gummy sometimes hours after you’ve eaten one. They do teach an important lesson, though: Sometimes bad candy is worse than no candy at all.

See also: Smarties.

Good & Plenty

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Plenty? Absolutely. Good? That’s debatable. While some people might think that these pill-shaped abominations are palatable, most people recognize that the reason that the word “plenty” is in the title is due to the fact that 50% of the box will go forever uneaten, ensuring that there’s always enough to go around (unless there’s some kind of natural disaster and you must) (but even then, it might be more tasty just to eat whoever’s weakest instead).

“I bet this purple one is grape.” WRONG! IT’S BLACK LICORICE AND MORE PROOF THAT THERE IS NO GOD. By the by, all the things you love will be taken from you by an uncaring world that has no sympathy for your travails.

Point being: More isn’t always better, and these multi-colored poison pills prove it!

Necco Wafers

What a rich and beautiful history these flavorless chalk tablets have! And what pretty pastel colors. There’s no way something so nice-looking could be terrible, right? No one would market this disks as candy if it weren’t safe to eat! And yet…

Every year when Halloween rolls around, Necco Wafers fill the store shelves, and while they may trick some poor naive first timers (particularly if they get the chocolate variety), any trick or treater will soon learn that they can’t eat one of these without having a glass of water nearby to keep them from choking to death.

Circus Peanuts

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#myfavorite #circuspeanuts

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This is it: The worst candy of all time. According to its description, these bloated orange monstrosities (#plzvote) are made of marshmallows and were originally peanut-flavored. Then, for some reason or another, they retained their size, shape, and color, but became artificially flavored with the essence of chemtrail-banana. Couple the taste with the fact that the texture makes your feel like you’re chewing on old insulating foam and you’ve got a candy that doesn’t live up to any of its promises. Just like a college degree from a brand name school that your parents will be paying for long after you’ve given up on your dreams.

It’s hard to imagine that so much angst and punishment could come from just one puffy orange monstrosity…Or maybe it isn’t.

Contact Mark directly on Twitter.

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