#1033 Cruddy Candy

Not long ago I was staffing a hole at a local golf tournament. So I bought one of those huge bags of assorted non-chocolate candies. Meltage being a big problem on hot days, getting candies other than the fun-size chocolate bars seemed a good idea.
The bag I got had all the favorites, Skittles, Tootsie Roll Pops, Laffy-Taffy, Jolly Ranchers, and the ever-popular Nerds—well-named, since they look suspiciously like candy-coated boogers.
After I poured all the candies out on the table, so golfers could grab what they wanted, I noticed that someone had done some pre-picking in the flavor selections. By which I mean the candy packer had mostly included less popular flavors in the assortment.
Take Laffy Taffy. Favorite flavors would be lime and cherry right? The “assortment” bag included 90% banana. Banana. One of three candy flavors that never ever taste like the fruit they supposedly represent.
Who likes banana? And which chemical taste wizard declared it even close. It tastes like a combination of burnt sugar and polypropylene. The only other flavor that’s worse is apple. I have never tasted an apple-flavored candy that tasted like any apple I’ve ever eaten, ripe, rotten, or sauced.
Why is it the artificial candy flavors we find toughest to create are the sweetest and most candy-like fruits in real life?
Anyhow, the bag was loaded with apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers. Which is not good because when I think rancher I think horse and when I think horse I don’t want to think apple in the same mental vicinity.
When I saw the majority of Nerd boxes I knew the also-ran cruddy candy conspiracy was real. The Nerds combined two of the unfavorable flavors with... apple-coated watermelon.
Have you ever tasted a watermelon candy that tasted remotely like a watermelon?
Maybe that’s a good thing. Because most of the Tootsie Roll Pops in the bag were, yep, you guessed it, watermelon-flavored Tootsie Pops. As Tootsie Pops have a separately flavored center, it set up the truly hideous taste combo. Chocolate Watermelon.
I tried it.
My tongue collapsed in horror and didn’t speak to me for a week.
America, ya gotta love it.