Looking for Mr. Goodbar!

It’s Halloween night and the last of the kids has trick or treated their way from our home. A light mist kept the overall kid count down this year as maybe 40 or so children and a few big kids showed up. Like most, we handed out the fun size version of candy bar, with each child getting 2 “minis.” It’s a standard giveaway these days, or is it? While looking at my son’s catch of the evening, complete with dumping it on the kitchen table, I noticed two things. People give out more than candy, and “Where in the world did Mr.Goodbar go?” For those of you who don’t know about Mr. Goodbar, it was my dad’s favorite candy bar and really nothing more than a chocolate bar with peanuts, pretty pedestrian by today’s standards. The reason it carried such weight in our household was that it was a great bargaining chip. If I handed over all my Mr.Goodbars, then I knew I could cash this in at a later date. Let’s keep in mind the negotiating skills of a nine year old usually consisted around being able to stay up to 10pm on a given night, instead of 9pm. Even still, having a Mr. Goodbar was gold in these parts of town. Back to the treats that were littered across our kitchen table, a deadliest catch of candy. There were eye balls, key rings, wrist bands and other knick knacks. It was a cross between a candy store and the check-out of a dollar store. My favorite was the candy eyeball which was popped into my son’s mouth without hesitation. “It’s just bubblegum dad.” No, it was icky and not going anywhere near my lips. He lamented over the fact that someone gave him pretzels. Hey, I’ll take that over an eyeball any day. The other thing I noticed was the absence of full size candy bars. In total there was one sitting in the middle of the table. A Baby Ruth, sitting there all proud, standing out like a six foot fifth grader during an awards ceremony. I negotiated for it, but kids today are different. I was offering items like a ride to school in the morning. He countered with a new video game. Enjoy the Baby Ruth kid. So here we sit, the day after another Halloween, a mini pile of treats await us as we try and figure out how to ingest these little treats while tricking our minds that there are no extra calories associated with these tasty snacks. It useless as the holiday snacking period has officially begun. Even without Mr. Goodbar!