An Open Letter to Candy Manufacturers

I have long loathed the Fun Size candy bar. Nothing fun about it if you ask me.  I don’t think it is right to cut a candy bar in thirds, only allow you to have one piece, and call it fun.  What about the other two-thirds?  Then when you decide to open an extra two Fun Size bars (to total an entire full size bar) you feel bad that you ate so much candy.   Seriously, why would anyone find that kind of emotional torment fun?

When I trick-or-treated as a kid, I promised that I would be one of those rare houses that handed out full size candy bars.  Those were the cool houses.  The houses that you got excited about once you realized what you got.  Unfortunately, finances got in the way of that goal.  Turns out a ton of law school loans and other everyday living expenses, combined with first/second year salaries, didn’t exactly lend to the full size candy bar house lifestyle.  Much to my dismay, I bought Fun Size candy bars for the trick-or-treaters that came to our house.  After a few years, I just got comfortable buying Fun Size candy bars and forgot about my full size candy bar goal.

Every year we buy a bag of candy “for the trick-or-treaters”.  It is a game my husband and I play, really.  We buy a bag of candy at the beginning of October and open it shortly thereafter, just to have a piece.  Naturally, one piece leads to two, then three, and by Halloween, that bag is gone.  We then have to go to the store and purchase a new bag for the actual trick-or-treaters.

So imagine my outrage when I opened this October’s bag of candy and found that the already too small Fun Size candy bar has been made even smaller.  It is now half of the size that it used to be.  So candy manufacturers, were you thinking that I wouldn’t notice?  That cutting it in half would make it even more “fun”?  Well you were wrong.  I can only hope that I am in some sort of test market for this smaller Fun Size bar.  In the meantime, I think it is time to hand out full size candy bars.  Good thing there are only 10 trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood.