Ode to Candy Corn

Lent arrived on Wednesday, which means time to sacrifice something for 40 days. I wonder if I get a pass this year because I’m pregnant? Usually I go all out and give up something AND do something. For example, last year I gave up sweets and ice cream (crazy right?) and I also curbed my shopping habit and went to an additional Mass each week (I’m an over-achiever, always have been).

Giving up sweets is my standby, a Lenten tradition for me. I confess that I have a gigantic sweet tooth. I love candy – not chocolate so much, but pure sickeningly sugary confections. Which is why the Lenten season is necessary for me. I would seriously have no teeth left and be a full-on diabetic if it wasn’t for these 40 days of abstaining each year. Of course, on Easter Sunday, I tend to lose all self-control and consume enormous amounts of jelly beans, which probably negates all the days of sacrifice leading up to it.

But one thing is for certain – I would never give up sweets if Lent coincided with Candy Corn Season.

Yes, Candy Corn Season…that lovely time of year beginning in mid-August leading up until Halloween. The time of year when the bags of Brach’s candy corn fill the holiday aisles at Walmart. In other words, the MOST wonderful time of the year.

You see, for me, candy corn is a 6th major food group, an essential part of the pyramid. I don’t just love it – I worship it and seek it out like a hard-core addict. Like a bear going into hibernation, I buy loads of candy corn in October, in hopes that it will last through July and get me through the rough months ahead (it never does).

After a few handfuls of gummy bears, I can’t eat one more. Not the case with candy corn. My body never rejects candy corn, never tires of it.

Day and night.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It doesn’t matter when. I always have room for candy corn.

Heck, I even have a t-shirt that says “Candy Corn: It’s What’s for Dinner.” And because my husband really does love me (either that or he’s trying to get rid of me with a sugar overdose), one Christmas he gave me a full stock box of candy corn (we’re talking like at least 50 two-pound bags…and in case you’re wondering, they did not last me through July either). I thought I died and went to heaven.

Then It happened.

And by “It” I mean Baby Kopp. When It came along, a funny (or really upsetting) thing happened –  – – I don’t want candy corn anymore, not even a little bit. Say what now?!? Yes, it’s true. It’s not so bad that the sight of a few kernels makes me nauseous. But my craving and intense need for my favorite orange, yellow and white confections is gone, totally vanished. I feel like I discovered that I no longer like my best friend. When I see those unopened, unwanted bags in my cupboard, I feel so guilty…I actually apologize to the rejected corn. (Not out loud, of course. Just in my head. I’m not that crazy.)

Oh, how I miss my tri-colored drug of choice.

So here’s a message for my candy corn: I promise you one day we’ll be together again. This break-up is only temporary – just twenty more weeks to go. Once I give birth to It, our love affair will be as strong as it was before.