I Want Candy!

I received an email notification from one of the dating sites yesterday, inviting me to some upcoming event. "You'll feel like a kid in a candy store," the email promised. Great. Isn't that the place where everything is bad for you?

Another site -- which won't give me access until I resubscribe and pay up -- keeps teasing me with "wink alerts" and an alleged inbox full of emails. There's always a tantalizing photo alongside the tease, a portion of a really good looking male face, handsome in an ageless sort of way. A little eye candy. My guess is that guy has neither winked nor emailed. Just a hunch.

When I was in elementary school, there was a candy store across the street named Mawdy and Eddie's. Actually, I think it was called Mortie and Eddie's, but this was Brooklyn in the sixties, long before I discovered that an "r" in the middle of a word is not silent and a word ending in "a" does not end with a phantom "r." Anyway, during our lunch hour, we would always leave time for a trip across Coney Island Avenue to Mawdy and Eddie's so we could stock our desks with junk to help us survive the afternoon.

The appeal was never so much the candy as it was the illicitness of it all. Back before the age of the ubiquitous water bottle, it was perfectly permissible for eight and nine year olds to roam around busy city streets, but god help you if you were caught with a snack or a beverage in the classroom. For us, the more daring the better. The most challenging items -- and naturally the most satisfying -- were the one cent individually wrapped pieces of Bazooka bubble gum. Not only did you have to be clever about the chewing and the occasional bubble, but you had to risk getting called on while you took the time to read the little Bazooka Joe comic.

Come to think of it, I often do feel like a kid in a candy store these days. Except I'm not a kid, and the candy isn't all bad for me. I can eat what I want, whenever I want, blow bubbles to my heart's content. I'll pass on the upcoming dating event and the mysterious emails, but I'll feel free to help myself to the good stuff. The world is my Snickers bar.