Pixy Stix v. Pop Rocks

I never ate pixy stix as a child because they scared me. They kind of reminded me of crack.

Never mind that I had no experience with crack, being a very sheltered, suburban, upper-middle-class child. I mean, here’s my elementary school understanding of drugs: My friends and I used to play house out by the backstop during recess. We would stuff the diamond-shaped chain link spaces in its walls with handfuls of mown grass all day long, only to have them ripped out by what we assumed were the big kids during their later recesses. (You know, BIG kids. Fourth through sixth graders. Huge.) We’d weave tiny little baskets out of pine needles, an art only mastered by my friend Jenny, who made amazingly detailed and tightly-woven ones. Out of freaking PINE NEEDLES. During RECESS. Still blows my mind. And we’d make little meals out of the weeds we found AND EAT THEM. One day, we were munching on them in class after recess, and some kid in my class started teasing me that I was eating drugs. Because it was weed? I guess?

And even though the teacher stopped him and explained that I was not “eating drugs”, and made me stop eating weeds in class, I never ever ate them again because I was afraid that they might in fact be drugs and I might be getting high on drugs without knowing it. Thank you.

So, that’s… why I never ate Pixy Stix as a child. I did kind of covet the extra-extra-huge ones, but I figured that even if it wasn’t a drug it would make me ridiculously high (so it kind of is a drug, which we already know about sugar, right?) and I never even tried that. That said, I totally get how the straw paper would get wet and goopy and in your way, as Sars Keckler points out here.

POP ROCKS

I LOVE POP ROCKS

That’s my report.

First of all, I love them. Second of all, urban legends are totally awesome. They have the edge of danger that I apparently saw in Pixy Stix, but less… plausible to my tiny ears. Actually, I think it’s just that I had tried them before I heard all that “and if you drink them with Coke your stomach will explode” stuff, plus I was hardly ever allowed to drink soda. (I told you I had a sheltered suburban childhood.)

Thirdly, pop rocks are so useful! They get extra points for having moved into an upscale candy position. I have half a Chuao chocolate bar in my bag right now, spiked with chilis and pop rocks. There is nothing better than biting into a chocolate bar and listening to it crackle while I bite into it and crackle while I chew it and crackle while I hold it in my mouth and listen.

Okay, there might be something better, but it ain’t Pixy Stix.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 11:59 pm and is filed under N Candy AA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.