Monday, October 20, 2008

The Origin of Candies

I found this particularly funny because this is exactly how I ate M&M's when I was young. I actually felt a little uncomfortable consuming the ultimate winner of each packet, and neither the idea presented here, nor the idea of setting the winner free occurred to me. Brazenly borrowed from here with a few minor edits. (Front page here- not a really busy spot, but their science funnies are among some of the best out there. I'm going to give this "scite" status too.)

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue
the development of strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To
this end, I hold M&M duels.

Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure,
slowly squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters.
That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner
gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and
the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the
blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of
competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier,
or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness,
but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way,
the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest
of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack
it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc.,
Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use
this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2
pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this"grant money." I have
set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we
will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.

4 comments:

Mathias said...

Thanks for sharing that story! I really needed a good laugh today and here it came! :-D

Lockwood said...

I've been sharing this with everyone at my favorite coffee shop and everyone's been getting a chuckle out of it- glad you enjoyed it too!

Dean Wormer said...

Survival of the Chocalatiest?

Lockwood said...

well... chocalaty things don't survive around me very long. And the Chocalatiest things' survival time is very short indeed.