Sept. 24: Chocolate bars

Today, I brought $100 to my son's school. This money was for the chocolate bars that we sold on behalf of the school. I imagine the money will go to field trips or presentations or end-of-year celebrations. The chocolate bars were three for $5. They were made by World's Finest Chocolate. They were all purchased by friends of the family. I did not buy any. I don't like World's Finest Chocolate. I don't think the name is accurate. Maybe if they called themselves World's Twentieth Best Chocolate, I would agree with them.

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I am a little ashamed to admit that I am a chocolate bar junkie. In case anyone is interested, here are my favourite chocolate bars, ranked in order of preference:

1. Snickers

2. Big Turk

3. Eat More (technically not a chocolate bar, but who cares?)

4. Reese Peanut Butter Cups (but I liked them better when they had the crunchy peanut butter or the honey peanut butter)

5. Wunderbar.

Obviously, I am not allergic to peanuts.

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Did you know that the Snickers bar was named after a horse? It's true. The chocolate bar's inventor, Frank Mars, owned a horse breeding operation. His wife Ethel's favourite horse on that farm was named Snickers. The chocolate bar he had just invented was named after Snickers, who is dead now.

Also, the Snickers people lobbied to have Halloween changed from October 31 to whatever the last Saturday of October is. The reason: money. People are more likely to party on Saturdays than Thursdays, so they'd likely eat more Snickers at a party, which means Snickers would make more money.

I guess it didn't happen though because there isn't a Department of Holidays. Also, Christmas always falls on December 25 and if Christmas has a fixed date, then Halloween is going to have to buckle up and share the same fate.

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When I worked at the newspaper, there was a big charity candy box on the counter. It was always filled with chcolate bars and mini cans of Pringles and sometimes even chewing gum. Each treat cost $2.50 and it was done on the honour system.

I was always raiding that box. I did it so often that the front desk people would often quip that they were surprised I didn't weight 300 pounds. I always took the Snickers first. There was also a boring generic chocolate bar in there that tasted like something that is the same colour as chocolate, but isn't chocolate (if you catch my drift.) The people who looked after the charity box never clued in that if they wanted to make more money, they should stack the box with good chocolate only.

Over the years, I probably put enough money in that box to buy a new wheelchair for the War Amps.

Now I'm craving a Snickers.

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I like to buy my chocolate bars at Dollarama. That's because I'd rather pay $1 for a Snickers, not $2.50, which is about what I pay for one at the grocery store. I don't know why they're so much cheaper at Dollarama. Probably has something to do with unions.