the end... by sarah brumble.

Two days ago, we announced the Sick-or-Treat tournament bracket, brought to you by Brachs™, and yesterday we narrowed down the competition. Today, we present our findings, as chosen by us. There are upsets. There are losers. There is a winner. Who is also a loser. The loser. If you accidentally purchased any of these treats to hand out tonight—because you wouldn’t actually willfully choose to hand out any of these horrid pseudo-treats, right?—throw them away. There’s still time to rush to your local grocery store and buy something good.

But don’t buy too much! We need to head over there tomorrow to buy the leftovers at half-off.

THE FINAL FOUR:

Peanut Butter Taffys vs Good & Plentys:

No one chooses to distribute either of these candies. They come in big bags created to make your Trick-or-Treat dish look assorted. Most kids will grab a random handful and trot to the next house, content that their plastic pumpkin bucket now weighs a slight bit more. The true disappointment comes when the pumpkin bucket is overturned on the floor of one’s living room to see that where there ought be fun-sized versions of brand-name delights, someone went the generic “Assorted Halloween Candy” route. It shows a complete lack of thought, and therein a lack of respect for the joy of children. While the same could be argued for the apple or raisin route (“I also got a granola bar once” - MT), they’re at least considering health in a time when two Deadly Sins — Greed and Gluttony — are at their apex. When a Trick-or-Treatee hands out Peanut Butter Taffys or Good & Plentys, it is because they are lazy. Pure and simple. But every year, both candies are still manufactured and put into these assorted sacks. And they’re bought. Not because they’re tasty, but because they’re convenient. Year after year, they continue to exist out of complacency.

Why bother to decide which is grosser, when both are just vile specimen? Why decide the greater of two evils? Because there has to be a winner in this tournament of losers? No. Because in fact one of these truly is grosser. And like most true, dark evils of the world, it has no name. “Good and Plenty” is a small licorice pill that whether white or purple tastes gross. But Peanut Butter Taffy goes unidentified. It travels anonymously under the cover of darkness, or sometimes orangeness. It tastes of peanut butter, but not the kind you’d see in a sandwich with jelly or wrapped in sweet sweet chocolate. It has been stripped of its smoothness, or chunkiness—and therein its goodness—to be replaced by filling-removing chewiness. It is gross, yes, but it is an Evil thing. And though for one night of the year, we celebrate many evil things, this is an Evil that should not be celebrated. Grosser: Peanut Butter Taffys

Wax Lips vs Circus Peanuts

In order to determine the winner of the Circus Peanuts/Wax Lips showdown, a series of scientific experiments were performed on the contenders. A high quality bar of Swiss chocolate was used as a control.

First, all three were submerged for 20 minutes in 500ml of deionized water. The Circus Peanuts absorbed approximately 200ml of water, expanding to twice their original size. At minute 15 of the experiment, their outer layers began to slough off, much like the skin of a drowning victim. Though the Wax Lips bobbed to the surface, they didn’t escape unharmed as their artificial coloring seeped into the water, which then resembled a literal bloodbath. The Swiss chocolate, meanwhile, remained intact throughout its immersion.

The second experiment found all three participants placed in a crucible and set on fire. The Circus Peanuts instantaneously exploded into a fine powder, covering the scientists from head to toe. When one inadvertently licked his lips, he found the candy to be shockingly delicious in its new form. When the Wax Lips were set ablaze, however, they took to the spark like moths to a flame, and began expanding in size at an exponential rate. At the time of this report, the lab—having been abandoned—continued to smolder, yet the scene retained an aura of comfort as the inferno bore with it sweet notes of fine chocolate.

For the final test, the candies in question were fed to dogs. The Circus Peanuts passed through the canine digestive systems completely intact. The Wax Lips were actually preferred by the dogs, but not for the purpose of consumption; the animals took to parading around their enclosures with the faux-lips perched at the ends of their snouts, and growled when researchers attempted to remove the specimens at the experiment’s conclusion. In the control group, all of the dogs perished, as anticipated.

In conclusion, though the Circus Peanuts’ corpselike reaction to water outweighed the Wax Lips’ seepage, when coupled with the latter’s magmatic behavior, Wax Lips’ propensity for overturning Occam’s Razor in a natural setting deem them the less desirable items to put into one’s mouth. Grosser: Wax Lips

AAAAAAAAND THE WINNER:

Peanut Butter Taffys vs Wax Lips: It is more important to eat something you can’t eat than to eat shit. Grossest: Peanut Butter Taffys