how do you move on
after losing candy corn
the answer is
you don’t
-rupi kaur*
Instagram has been swamped with mushy posts, everything is heart shaped and single people are staring murderously at every couple they see walking by, which can mean only one thing: it’s Saint Valentine’s Day again. And on this day dedicated to love, I thought it would be only fitting to write about something that I love. So this article goes out to candy corn, or as it’s called in the language of love, le bonbon de maïs.
I love candy corn. So, so much, and in so many ways that even Elizabeth Barrett Browning can’t count them. When I was opinion editor last semester I pushed for a pro-candy corn editorial at Halloween that encapsulates my love for the unfairly hated confectionery pretty darn well. I later fought another member of the DTH staff on Twitter about the subject and then (ab)used my power as editor to call out said other staffer —*cough cough* María — in the paper in both the Quick Hits and Online Reader Comment sections. All of this just go to show that 1) I will do anything to evangelize — note from María: and coerce — others to my candy faith, and 2) I’m something of a candy corn aficionado.
So imagine my surprise, my happiness, my sheer excitement when Livy, an Editorial Board member who enjoys eating candy corn WITH CHEEZ-ITs, mentioned at a recent Board meeting that she’d seen some newfangled Valentine’s version of candy corn. As the resident candy corn expert, naturally I decided I had to taste it, not just for myself, but for you, the DTH readership, so that I could let you all know if it stacks up to the original or is just some pink-and-white pretender. Misha didn’t think — you know Misha, don’t you? Opinion editor? Incredibly defensive of Broward County? Likes Continuum era John Mayer even though Battle Studies is obviously Mayer’s peak? (A “best gas station sushi in Alabama” situation if ever there were one.) Well, anyway, Misha didn’t think this was sufficient reason for the DTH to cover my candy corn costs — apparently $100-worth is “way too much to be justifiable” and Misha is “concerned about my health” — but such is my devotion to my craft that I decided to spring for it myself. At which point I ran into a bit of a snag.
You see, while Google tells me there is a Valentine’s Day candy corn — or “cupid corn,” as it’s been unnecessarily rebranded— it isn’t made by Brach’s, which is the only acceptable candy corn brand, and it doesn’t seem to be sold in any stores in the Chapel Hill area. So either Livy’s eyes were mistaken or, and this is the theory I subscribe to, she cleared out the stock in all nearby stores and will be subsisting on her weird little Cheez-It and candy corn sandwiches for months to come.
