Boxes of Chocolates

Much to the dismay of my waistline, I generally don't discriminate when it comes to Halloween confectionery: I'll eat almost anything.

But I certainly have my favourites. And that means, by definition, I also have my least-favourites.

If you were to empty the boxes shown in the photo onto a table and ask me to put my favourites in a bag, I'd fill the bag (in order) with KitKat, Coffee Crisp, Sour Skittles, Twix, Caramilk, Crispy Crunch, Aero, and Starburst.

Everything else would be perfectly acceptable when my favourites weren't available... they'd just never be preferred when they were. And if those leave-aside treats weren't included in the box at all, I wouldn't miss them.

But you might.

Your bag of favourites might look completely different than mine.

In a best case scenario, it would be completely opposite; then we could get together, make a few trades, and both leave absolutely delighted.

That's not always possible, though. And when it's not, you savour the treats you love for as long as they're available, work through your less-favourite treats until they're done, and forget about out the ones you simply can't tolerate.

Life is like a box of chocolates.

- dp

P.S. The photo used for this post was taken in my kitchen: clearly, we didn't let the fact that we aren't sending our kids trick-or-treating this year stop us from stocking-up on treats! My wife and I have already gone through a 50-pack of Hershey treats, lest you thought from the photo that we're discriminating against that confectioner; we both fought over the Cookies-and-Creme chocolates from that pack, but my wife left all of the Hershey milk chocolate bars and Twizzlers for me... they were her least favourite. We also may have polished off an additional 65-pack of treats from Mars while binge-watching Schitt's Creek this week. Yes, the diet starts on November 1st.

P.P.S. When I began this post, I intended to make it about the pros and cons of variety packs. And what I discovered after three hours of trying to write something interesting about the pros and cons of variety packs is that it might actually be impossible to write something interesting about the pros and cons of variety packs. So I hope you agree this post was a slightly better use of your time. Enjoy your Halloween!