Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!

When I went over to Australia for a semester in college, I was devastated to find out that European candy is severely substandard in quality.  Sure, the british Cadbury chocolate bars can hold their own, but other than that, there is nothing over there that could satisfy my sweet tooth.  So, imagine my utter child-like wonder and delight when I discovered that a small candy store a few blocks from my hole-in-the-wall apartment sold American candy.  The first time I went in, I think I just stood there for half an hour, my eyes drifting over the various brand names that were oh so familiar to me, the brightly colored packaging aglow with the promise of sugar and happiness.  Jelly Belly, Snickers, Starburst, Butterfinger, they had it all.  It was my own little piece of home right there in Melbourne.

You should know, I have been harboring an intense sugar addiction almost my whole life.  When I was in elementary school, all I wanted was to open my lunch box and see a Fruit Roll-Up or a pack of Gushers sitting next to my sandwich.  That was just the beginning.  Unfortunately, I rarely got my sugar fix. Shockingly, my mom had this thing about feeding us food that had actual nutritional value.  I'm sure she was trying to encourage healthy eating, but all it did was cause my addiction to go underground.  My need for sugar was still there, I was just sneakier about how I got it.  One year, when I was in middle school, we ended up having a ton of Halloween candy left over because nobody had come trick or treating to our house.  My mom packed up the extra bags of Skittles, put them on a shelf in the basement, and didn't give the candy a second thought.  I, on the other hand, was consumed with thoughts of those delicious bite-sized pieces of sugary heaven.  I began sneaking down to the basement to grab a bag of Skittles.  I was smart about it, too--I would rearrange the bags so that you couldn't even tell that some were missing.  Of course, I fell victim to the most basic rule of stealing--don't get greedy.  My addiction was bad, real bad, and I just kept taking bag after bag of Skittles, until even I, in my sugar-induced haze, could tell that there weren't as many bag as before.  Needless to say, my mom pulled her own Nancy Drew and cracked The Mystery of the Skittles Thief.  I'm not sure, but it might have been the wild look in my eyes and constant jitter to my step, not to mention the empty Skittles bags I had cleverly hidden under my bed.

The point of all this is that over the years, I have become a sort of candy connoisseur.  And much like my dad is particular (coughPRETENTIOUScough) about wine, I turn my nose up at candy that does not meet my expectations.  And European candy just does not cut it.  So when I went to visit my boyfriend in Namibia and discovered that they, too, suffer from the unappealing imports from Europe, I resolved to fix this problem.  Therefore, I have just come back from an extensive shopping trip to Five Below.  Five Below is a dollar store that stocks everything from books to sports toys to makeup kits to, you guessed it, CANDY.  And man, they do it right.  They have all the basics--Snickers, M&Ms, Starburst, Sour Patch Kids, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups--as well as the great classics from my childhood--Airheards, Laffy Taffy, Ring Pops, Push Pops, Pop Rocks, and Warheads.  I think I almost overdosed just by looking at all racks of candy.  It's lucky that I didn't just rip open bags of candy and start feasting right there in the store.  But no, I was on a mission: to educate my boyfriend's host family about the wonder that is AMERICAN candy.  So, I loaded up my shopping bag, and I headed for the checkout:

When I dumped the contents of my bag onto the counter, the checkout girl looked appalled as she said, "I really hope that's not all for you."  I happily explained the whole story, but truthfully, I could easily be there next week buying just as much candy, but with no plans to ship it over to Africa.  I told you, I got it baaaaaaad....