Growing up, they were my favorite part of Trick-or-Treating.  I couldn’t wait to get home and rip through all the tons of cavity causing candy in hopes of finding the greatest treat of all – Sour Patch Kids! Living in the Pennsylvania country, Trick-or-Treating was a time involved parental nightmare. We lived in the middle of nowhere, which meant that my mother was more than unhappy to get in the car and drive me from house to house.  I’m sure all the money she spent on gas far outweighed the cost of the candy! After what seemed like hours of driving, I would quickly run home and go through all the loot! The news always said to have your parents inspect your candy, but since we were always going to friends or my grandparent’s homes, that was no big deal. (Stopping at my grandparents was best – they gave out cash! OK, just to me…) Digging through my plastic pumpkin, I would dump all the candy out on the kitchen table: Peanut Butter cups… those were good, Hershey Bars – always a winner, anything Willy Wonka was a good score. The jerk house that gave out apples… Finally, I would find the holy grail of candy… Sour Patch Kids! Sour Patch Kids were originally developed in the 1970’s and sold as Mars Men.  After experimenting with adding a candy coating of sugar to gummy fruits, the Allen Candy Company of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada began to officially produce Sour Patch Kids. They produced the product until 1995, when the line was sold to Cadbury Schweppes, the chocolate and ginger ale people, who made the confection until they were bought out by Kraft Foods in 2010. Fortunately for all of us, Sour Patch Kids are sold in a variety of flavors....

On Saturday night, three friends and I went to the Haunted Hayride at Griffith Park.  I hoped for some overpriced cheap thrills and instead found something far more terrifying: a Purgatory filled with lost souls searching, pleading, clawing for escape. It starts promisingly enough.  The smell of fresh hay hangs in the air, red and green lights cut through the manufactured fog, intricately carved jack-o-lanterns lay about.  Vendors dressed as zombies circulate through the crowd selling drinks, hot dogs, and candy.  I hop up and down, an excited five year old swept up in the carnie-goodness of it all.  My friends and I go to stand on line. The line is long. Very long. It stretches maybe two hundred meters up a hill.  It loops in on itself a few times.  Just to the side, several small sideshows have been set up to entertain the crowd.  They don’t seem particularly active.  Danny Elfman music pumps from speakers strategically placed around the line.  The fake fog hangs thick.  I’m still excited. A guy behind us is markedly sullen.  “How long is this line,” he gripes to his girlfriend.  Then he plunks himself on a bale of hay.  My friend leans over to me “What a jerk,” she says, “Why can’t he get in the spirit of this thing?”  I nod.  What a jerk. Ahead of us are three guys in their early twenties.  At some point, a costumed character comes up and shocks one of them.  The kid shrieks like a six year old girl.  He jumps up and covers his face with his hands.  I think he might be crying. We decide that we like these kids and will do everything in our power to ride with them.  Everything is more fun with shrieks and...