Valentine's Day is a tough holiday.
Single people are bitter on Valentine's Day; people who are not single are stressed. Regardless of relationship status, however, everyone should remember one thing: Candy goes on sale Feb. 15, the day after Valentine's Day.
Say what you will about how the holiday is nothing more than a sham thought up by greeting card companies to make money. Whine about the futility of love. Hell, criticize the color red if you want. Whatever you do, though, don't hate on the candy. That cheap, cheap candy.
For less than a dollar, I was able to buy two bags of Necco Sweethearts Tiny Conversation Hearts ("#1 Valentine Candy," according to the bag), and, with the help of the contents of these two bags, I could get on, and stay on, a sugar high that will last me more than a week.
The net weight of each bag is seven ounces. Think of that in drug terms if you like, because these are powerful stimulants! Let's get these onto the streets, ASAP! Barksdale won't hold those towers for long!
Necco is not messing around.
Looking at the ingredients of Necco Sweethearts, one may be completely unsurprised to learn that the primary ingredient is sugar. After sugar comes corn syrup and corn starch. Basically these hearts are sugar that's only held together by corn byproducts.
But let's focus on that first one, shall we? It's capitalized on the bag. All of the ingredients are capitalized, but this pink bag of tiny little heart−shaped candies is screaming to potential consumers that what they are about to consume is sugar. Pure sugar.
And let's not forget that actual, biological hearts look nothing like these hearts. It has been suggested that this particular geometric shape came about because if you turn it upside down it appears to be a buttocks. A female's buttocks. And that is a sign of fertility and getting freaky. It makes sense if you think about it a little, but not too hard. Consequently, that's what she said.
I just popped eight of these things and I feel like I drank an entire Box O' Joe. I'm not going to be able to sleep any time soon.
If these sugary rumps weren't good enough on their own, Necco turns them into adventures in literature by printing a phrase on each tiny, edible female buttocks, whispering sweet nothings to the eater. Some of them are poorly printed and the occasional heart is blank, but how often does such a powerful stimulant tell a user to "Kiss Me," or "Be Mine?" Or, for that matter, "Top Chef," or "Got Love?"
I love it when my candy makes outdated references to wildly popular but mostly forgotten ad campaigns for extremely mundane products. Also, Tony Montana snorted that mountain of yayo, but it never once called him "Top Chef." Not once.
Aside from the chalky Reader's Digest/Don Juan of the confectionary world, Feb. 15 also offers sweet deals on other types of terrible candies: oversized boxes of disgusting chocolates with fillings like maple−crème, stale toffee and cherry−or−is−it−strawberry and bags of red−only M&M's. Candy lovers everywhere can find themselves sugared up and stomach−ached for weeks on end with the bounties bought on this glorious day.
So, to recap, say what you will about Valentine's Day, but everyone can agree that the day after Valentine's Day is awesome. What's better than cheap candy? Nothing.
Almost nothing.
Almost.
Feb. 15: four and a half out of five stars.
I just ate a couple more hearts and now I'm shaking a little bit.
--
Mitchell Geller is a junior majoring in psychology and English. He can be reached at Mitchell.Geller@tufts.edu.
