This year for Halloween I bought a bunch of candy in case any trick-or-treaters came by. But not even one showed up. So now I’m stuck with all of these bags of candy, which I tried to resist at first, but by now I’ve given in, and I’m just constantly eating candy, waiting for it to run out so that my brain stops bothering me every ten seconds, whispering stuff in my ear like, “Hey Rob, so, uh … how about some more candy?” And it’s such a strong craving I’ll taste it in my mouth, I’ll want it so badly, and I’ll cave to the temptation almost immediately.

I haven’t eaten this much candy in a while. In fact, I don’t think I’ve eaten any candy in a while. So I’m having like a mini candy renaissance. I pick out four big bags of fun sized treats. They looked pretty harmless when they were still packaged behind all of that clear plastic. I wasn’t yet feeling any appeal. But then I decided, what the hell, it’s just going to sit there. I might as well have one piece of candy, two tops.

And then I opened that first bag. It was a variety pack, a mix of Milky Ways, Twix, Snickers, and Three Musketeers. As soon as I split open the plastic I was overcome with the actual sensation of being a little kid again. I was instantly transported back to my childhood, canvassing the neighborhood on Halloween for candy, and saving that candy for weeks. It was that scent of assorted chocolates and candy bars. It was the smell of Halloween.

I hadn’t even popped anything in my mouth yet and I was already feeling way more excited than I had anticipated. Any ideas about having just one or two were replaced by having to try out at least one of each variety. I picked out a Milky Way and ate it. I’m telling you, that one bite completely altered the trajectory of my whole day. I was flooded with energy. It tasted so good, even better than I remember it tasting when I was a little kid. It was too much, I started making fists and jumping up and down really quickly. I didn’t want it to stop, so I went straight for the Twix. It was the same reaction. No wait, it was even better. The effect was amplified. I turned around in a couple of circles, the energy was overwhelming. One after the other, each flavor tasted better than the last. And even better, and totally unexpected, Milky Way Dark, which I never liked as a little kid, it now tasted incredible, delicious.

I went through like fifteen pieces of candy in under a minute. And then I started feeling a little worried, because I knew somewhere in my mind that eating that much candy isn’t really the best thing to do for your body. I gave myself a minute to let my brain catch up to my taste buds. Sure enough, the euphoria was very fleeting, and once I started to get my feet to stop jumping up and down, I realized that my tongue felt a little raw. Worse, I was actually sort of full, in a weird gross way, and it especially sucked because I had just ordered some dinner, and I think I might have spoiled my appetite.

But yeah, over the course of a day or two I made quick work of that variety pack. And I told myself, just don’t open the other bags. Just keep it in check, keep it together Rob. I think I kept it in check for maybe a day. And then I opened up the Kit Kats. This was really disappointing actual, because, and I didn’t even realize it until after I had opened up the first Kit Kat, instead of using chocolate, they used orange dyed white chocolate, I guess for some sort of a Halloween theme. Gross. I tried to just close my eyes and pretend that it was the original, but unlike my experience with Milky Way Dark, a candy I hated as a child but now liked as an adult, unfortunately my sense of taste remained unmoved by white chocolate. It tastes like eggs or something. I can’t really describe it except to repeat again that it’s gross.

That’s still sitting there, untouched. I’ll probably have to just eventually throw it out at some point. I think I’m going to throw it out right now just so I don’t have to look at it anymore. But I’m halfway through a giant bag of Peanut M&Ms. There’s still an unopened sack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I can’t take this anymore. Now it’s all becoming so compulsory. Every time I’m bored, every minute or so, I get up and eat a bag of M&Ms. My teeth are starting to hurt. I haven’t eaten an apple in like two weeks.

And you know what I think a big part of the problem is? Fun size. To what psychopath does a bag containing six M&Ms seem like a fun size? That’s not a fun size. A fun size is one of those party bags of M&Ms, where there’s no individual packs, just tons of loose M&Ms, like you fill up a whole bowl with them and put that bowl out at a party. That’s always the best, going to a party where there’s a giant bowl of unwrapped candy, because nobody ever goes for it. Nobody except me, I hit it really early in the night. After a while my fingers are all stained red and blue and it’s clear to everyone that I’ve made it my personal candy bowl. Still, I always get a stomachache from that much candy.

Fun size. Come on, it’s a trick. If they were packaged as regular sized packs of candy, I guarantee you I would only eat one. But because they are so little, so comically small, there’s no way I’m going to stop at just one. So I’ll just keep going, little by little, slowly getting into the double digits until next thing I know, I’ve just eaten a pound of M&Ms without even realizing the magnitude of what I’ve done. That’s not fun. Nothing that small is fun. Just call it small size. Or tease sized. Actually, you know what would be a really fun size? Like a swimming pool, an Olympic sized pool filled to the brim with Peanut M&Ms. And I’d climb up to the diving board and execute a perfect dive, face down, mouth open, just totally submerged in Peanut M&Ms. I could eat all of them, without stopping, I don’t have any doubt. That would be a really fun size.