Wherein I admit a dark secret.
I have a problem.
It’s something that’s dogged me for a while, a deep secret that I have wrestled with for many years. I’ve tried to mitigate it, keeping friends and family from knowing the dark depths of my secret. But I needed to indulge it. I just had to. And on this night I shared it with the world. Or at least the other shoppers of Walgreens Store #1172.
It was one thirty in the morning. I slid the basket across the counter. The checkout girl glanced at the contents and then looked up at me.
“I think that I might have a candy problem,” I said sheepishly.
For someone like me, Easter itself isn’t the best part of the holiday. Sure I like colorful rabbits, lamb, and Zombie Jesus – who doesn’t? But for me, the best part comes afterwards. I look forward to the following days when the Easter candy gets marked down. As I stood nervously in the Walgreens, my basket was filled with piles of 50% off Easter candy.
The stores do this every year, and because of that, so do I. Easter candy isn’t good to most stores after the date is past. It takes up space, space that could be used for something else seasonal. Space that could be used to store non-Holiday candy, or as I call it, non-denominational candy. Why someone wouldn’t be fine with perfectly good Easter candy is something I think I only ask. For whatever reason, the stores clear out their holiday candy reserves and I make an effort to be there.
The trick is figuring out when. Over the years, stores have been tricky on when they mark down the candy and how much. For a long time, they wasted a few days with a 30% off discount. Sure, some people will pick up some Easter candy at 30%, but it’s not really a bargain shopper’s market. Not when we know we can wait a while. No, the ideal price point is 50%. Sure, candy goes as low as 75%, and in rare cases 90%. But there’s nothing left you want.
To find good candy when the price has dropped so low, one of three things need to be true. First, the store could have completely overbought a type of candy, perhaps through clerical error. They can’t get rid of the damn stuff, so even at 90% there’s tons left over. Second possibility is the candy isn’t being stored where the rest of the Holiday candy is. Maybe you find it in another aisle. Maybe it got accidentally mixed in with the non-denominational candy. Those of unscrupulous moral character could find the candy they want a few days before Easter and hide it a few days before, hoping for store employees not to find it and put it where it should go. Misplaced candy avoids vulturous candy fiends such as myself, so it will be there when the sale price drops low. The third possibility to find your favorite candy is easy. You just like candy that nobody else likes. Don’t be afraid to admit it. Your Peeps and candy corn addiction is safe with us.
The checkout girl did not react to my self-depreciating humor. I’m not sure if it was because she didn’t care for it, or because she was so stuck in retail mode that she wasn’t used to responding to customers who talk to her as a real person. It took her a few moments and said, “Yeah, I like candy too.”
The corporate office must require them to laugh at customer jokes.
I forced a smile and looked behind me. The people in line behind me had pained looks. I could almost read their thoughts, “Oh, it’s another one of these fucking people. Can you flirt with the checkout girl after I leave? It’s one thirty in the goddamn morning on a Monday and I just need to buy condoms and milk.”
As I mentioned, finding the right day is crucial. Stores don’t dick around with 30% anymore. They go right to 50%. The big problem is finding out when. You would think that Monday is the best day to go. But some stores are mostly cleaned out on Mondays, particularly grocery stores. Well, you might think, then grab the bull by its horns and go Sunday. A good idea, but Sunday has its own problems. Stores randomly close on Easter Sunday, sometimes without posting a note the day before or on the internet. The other problem is if it is open on Sunday, the store is short staffed and may not spare the manpower to mark down Easter candy. This has you looking hungrily at all the chocolate, wondering if you want to pull the trigger and get it at full price and the sure thing, or if you want to roll the dice and wait for the price to drop.
Some stores have event started discounting candy before Easter Sunday. Last year I went into a Target the Saturday before Easter and found the good stuff on sale. I had a great year. This year I tried the same and showed up at Target on Saturday afternoon. That was a bust. Target was even more progressive this year. By Saturday afternoon, nearly all Easter candy was gone, leaving only off-market chocolate bunnies and orange-cream filled eggs. Unlike previous clearances, there wasn’t even empty space in the Seasonal section with sad-looking Easter displays. That space was already taken up by the next season. It’s like some overzealous Target employee looked at the candy on Good Friday and said, “Alright, let’s get this shit out of here. It’s time to sell patio furniture, yo.”
It was because of Target’s cruel betrayal that I found myself in Walgreens at one thirty in the morning on Monday.
The checkout girl was now slowly emptying my basked and trying to scan the items. I had a lot of chocolate eggs, individually wrapped in tinfoil. No, these weren’t the Cadbury Cream Eggs. That wondrous confection is perhaps the most sought-after Easter item. I say this not because they are my absolute favorite item. No, it’s just a simple observation of supply. Whenever there is an Easter sale, they are the first to go. In some rare cases, they are gone before Easter even strikes, the appetites of the hungry masses clamoring for more than what a mere Target can satiate. No, I had no Cadbury Cream Eggs in my basket. I had only the fond memories of the full-priced CCEs I had eaten in the week previous.
Ah the memories.
No, my basket was packed with the holy trinity of Easter candies: Reese’s, Cadbury, and Russell Stover. Yes, while I missed out on Cadbury’s cream eggs, the Cadbury Caramel Eggs are a worthwhile second place. Russell Stover has recently tossed their hat into the chocolate-egg-filled-with-some-substance market with their own versions. I grabbed a few over the Russell Stover, but they were odd varieties. None overlapped with Cadbury, as if there was a begrudging respect or some type of patent on cream-filled chocolate eggs. But that latter couldn’t be the case, as I found an off-brand version of a cream egg. It has no yellow yolk, but otherwise imitates the cream filling well. My one worry is that there’s no brand name listed on the tinfoil wrapper. It’s completely generic and anonymous, almost untraceable.
Know that if I am found dead in the next few days, stomach bloated with poison, throat jammed with pins and razorblades, know that it was the no-name cream eggs.
The rest of my basked was filled with my two loves, chocolate and peanut butter. Truly they are like food of the gods, the ambrosial flavor of two great tastes that taste great together. There’s always a great deal of chocolate and peanut butter delights around all candy-centric holidays, and they are often new varieties, almost as if the magic-makers at Reese’s are bending reality to my will.
Regular chocolate is also good.
There are two types of Holiday candy worth noting. First is the obvious type: stuff you can only get on the Holidays. Not only Cadbury Cream Eggs, but such wonders as chocolate flowers (Valentines), candy corn (Halloween), candy canes (Christmas), and chocolate frosted sugar bombs (Guy Fawkes Day). We all know about this candy.
The other type of candy is interesting if you are a bargain hunting candy freak such as myself. Around each Holiday, the companies that be will take their regular non-denominational candy and holiday brand it. Sometimes they change the shape slightly by using a different mold at the factory. Sometimes they don’t even do that, but instead just create new holiday-themed packaging for their same candy. Often times this is the addition of a simple festive piece of artwork, sometimes it is a complete repackaging. Before Christmas this year I saw chocolate bunnies rebranded as “chocolate reindeer” with the bunnies’ prodigious ears becoming antlers.
So, you’re probably thinking, why should I care about this type? It’s really the same normal candy with the same wrapper, right? You are correct, it is the same candy. To us. But to the corporate masters at Reeses, Walgreens, Target, et al, it is a completely different substance. It is a holiday substance that loses all value after the appointed day. Therefore, it is also clearance out with the holiday specialties. You can literally walk one aisle over and find the same bag of candy, just minus the holiday flair for double the price. Holiday clearance candy gets you the same candy on the cheap.
Suffice to say, my basket was loaded with a few bags of Reese’s “peanut butter eggs”. While the name might make you think they are something novel, they are really just Reese’s peanut butter cups without the flanging around the edges. Exact same stuff, but now 50% off. I think I bought four bags of those. I also bought Dove’s peanut butter eggs to see how those are. They’re the swanky chocolate brand. Normally they’re too expensive to be worth trying, but 50% off too expensive to be worth trying is porridge that’s just right.
After scanning all the bags and many frustrating attempts to slide the foil-wrapped chocolate eggs over the price scanner, the checkout girl totaled my purchase. Twelve dollars and seventy-eight cents. I looked down at my bountiful harvest. The bags alone totaled forty-two and a half ounces of pure, refined Columbian chocolate. I licked my lips at the thought. This didn’t include the dozen or so chocolate eggs rolling around my bag. Quite a good deal.
I took my plunder home, ready to gorge myself on chocolate even at two in the morning. Alas, this is my problem, my addiction to bear. One day I might get over it. A dark day in Hell, I say, but one day it might happen. Luckily, this is not quite as dangerous an addiciton. I thank whatever powers that be that I grapple with neither obesity nor diabetes (“Diabeetus,” says the Wilford Brimley lolcat). No, just holiday chocolate addiction.
In a peanut butter and chocolate flavored afterglow, my lips smeared with chocolate, sticky bits of tinfoil adhering to my fingers, I suddenly had a horrifying thought. I looked at the calendar. What was the next holiday? Memorial Day? Fourth of July? Are those candy holidays? Could they be candy holidays? When would be the next time I could get holiday candy? Halloween? I had to wait until Halloween? Could I make it?
Sounds like I’ll be at Walgreens this weekend for the 75% off sale.
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