Hallowe’en Candy

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Hallowe’en for adults just isn’t the same as when we’re kids.  For starters, we don’t have to work for it anymore.  We can go buy candy any time we want.  And we get to buy the stuff we like.  None of those cheap lollipops and granola bars that taste like sand.

I have been entirely useless this Sunday.  I went and picked up a whole lot of half-price Hallowe’en candy yesterday and am now wishing I hadn’t.  I’m now keenly aware that I’ve consumed calories in excess of my dietary requirements.  The doctor-reporter on CityNews said an extra 100 calories per day is enough to gain weight.  Shit. Each one of those ‘fun-sized’ chocolate bars has 50-100 calories.  How many have I had today…?  Ugh.

And Hallowe’en is just the beginning of holiday gluttony.  As we get closer to Christmas, pound-packing candies, chocolates, egg nog and alcohol are plentiful.  Then there’s the actual sit-down turkey-and-stuffing dinner with no shortage of food topped off with calorie-rich gravy and desserts.  Mmmm.  I can count the kilos already.

One change I’ve noticed since I was a kid at Hallowe’en is the chocolate bars are getting smaller!  No, it’s not me that’s gotton bigger.   Hallowe’en Mars bars used to be about 1/3 of a full-sized Mars bar.  Now they’re tiny little bite-sized things.  WTF?  I’ve noticed the same thing with Oh Henry’s.  Reese Peanut Butter Cups seem to be about 80% of the size of the real thing.  Is this a reaction to kids getting fat, or a marketing decision based on selling Hallowe’en candy on quantity?

If there was a point to this post, it has escaped me.  Don’t eat too much candy.


Parenting Classes Should be Mandatory

Monday, June 2, 2008

Last Friday I went to the neighbourhood pub for a well earned drink and a bite to eat to cap off the work week. The entire time I was there, two kids, about five and eight years old, were running around playing, screaming and crying. The older one, a girl, took pleasure in kicking her younger brother’s ass playing video games and loudly taunting him about it. This went on for TWO hours… the entire time I was there.

No one wants to watch or listen to other people’s kids misbehaving. I NEVER would have done anything like that as a kid. My parents had no tolerance for that shit. If my sister or I acted up as those little rotters did last night (we wouldn’t have), we would have been out of there in about three seconds flat. Not only would we get to go home hungry but we would have also been grounded for two weeks. In my day grounded meant whatever enjoyable activity I would have done had I not been grounded would be taken away. TV? Video games? Not a chance. Since eating out was considered a treat, we probably wouldn’t have seen another restaurant for six months after an episode like that.

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