What the HECK?

I fear I am revealing too much of myself to you, my “readers”. I hope the high esteem you hold me in does not suffer from the revelation of more of my peculiarities. Let’s see, you already know that I (sort of) like the smell of skunk, I eat Jack in the Box tacos, and I feed my daughter at Taco Bell, no matter how impaired her food handling skills.

I now reveal yet another unexpected bit of information; I like Circus Peanuts. Nothing like a real peanut, the only thing that the Circus Peanut has in common with a real peanut is the overall shape and the pattern of slight indentations on the surface. The bright fluorescent orange color is pretty far from an actual peanut. They are a little on the large size in the realm of peanuts, and the taste has no resemblance to peanuts here on earth.

The overall experience of eating even one or two of these freaks of candydom comes together in a remembrance of a simpler time before serving sizes and nutrition information on packages. The thing that I like about them is the compression that I get when I put tooth to peanut. It’s like you’re getting something accomplished.

I got a package the other day at CVS when I paid for a prescription and got my big winner CVS reward of a dollar. The peanuts caught my eye on my way out and at 99¢ fit nicely into the budget of the coupon.

When I got to the car, I tore into the bag to experience the age-old sensation of the first bite. It had been a long time, days really, since I had acquired a bag of them, so the payoff did not disappoint.

I realize that the provided photo looks a lot like something from a CSI show. One can see the clean shear on the peanut (along with the semi-flattened pattern) showing that it was a little al dente. But that didn’t stop me. They’re usually pretty soft, and that’s good, too. I don’t think there is any way to mess up the experience of something so messed up to begin with, there are only subtle shadings of guilty pleasure. And it’s not like I could eat these things more than once or twice a year (yes, the above reference was a joke). It’s just that sometimes, the thought or memory of something so weird catches your eye.

You hate me now, don’t you?