Kids in a Candy Store

The primary goal of a child is to have fun. Kids try to have the most fun in anything they do, fueled by boundless energy and facilitated by a lack of inhibitions. Adults, on the other hand, do not hold fun in high priority. In fact, adults often look down on fun, even in situations when fun is welcome. So what changes from childhood to adulthood to take the fun out of life? Why are there no clowns at Board meetings? Why don't tanks play the ice-cream truck ditty?

Leading scientists believe that maturation and a lack of fun are directly related. Cognitive development and societal pressures drive the maturation process. Scientists see maturation as a natural process across all life forms. Resisting that process is unhealthy because it fights the body's natural tendencies and creates cognitive dissonance, i.e., you can't stay a kid forever. Those scientists are leading the Crap Train to Boringville.

More likely, the answer is in the diet. There is a magic dietary switch somewhere between "heck yeah, I'm a freakin kid!" to "Little fun exists in my life and I don't know why," and I know what it is. The answer lies in the choice between two foods -- candy and bread. Given that choice, kids choose candy 110% of the time, while adults choose kaiser rolls and marble rye. Kids say things like "CANDY!!! CANDY CANDY CANDY CANDY!!!!" Adults say things like, "I'm the bread-winner in this family," "I put bread on this table," and "I love bread, it makes me so serious."

I can hear the adults objecting already. "What's this guy got against bread?" you might say in your poor English. Well, I eat bread too. I eat it everyday. I freakin love bread. But I must admit, I had more fun when I ate candy instead. It's easy to see why candy is more fun than bread. Candy comes in one gillion brilliant colors, bread comes in three colors -- white, brown, and random earthtone. Candy is sweet, bread is not sweet. What of sweet rolls or sticky buns you say? Sorry, just a marketing ploy to disguise candy as bread. Because sweetness is inherently more fun than saltiness, bitterness, or sourness, candy is clearly more fun than bread.

So kids choose candy and adults choose bread, and candy is more fun than bread, so kids have more fun than adults. Now I hear the fretting, "Can I flip the magic switch?" "Can I go back to candy?" "Am I destined to live without fun?" Unfortunately, the only way to retain all of the magical powers of candy is to never switch to bread. If you choose candy, you choose fun, but once you grab that first slice of whole wheat over a wad of watermelon Big League Chew, you've started down a wholesome path that candy will not soon forget.

I know this because I went to a candy store with Joseph and his three kids. I was jealous when the sight of aisles of candy lit their faces up. I wish I could go back to my carefree days of stuffing halloween candy into my face, or buying my dinner with fifty cents at the ballpark, but it's just not the same anymore. We all had our favorites, didn't we? Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Mombas, Ring Pops, Skittles, Lemonheads, Sour Patch Kids, Caramel Creams, Fireballs, Pixie Stix, and those packets of colored sugar that you ate with a candy stick are just the tip of the iceberg.

I remember eating Slush Puppies after my yearly baseball game under the lights on Locust Street. Each player chose his favorite flavor from the row of neon squeeze bottles, glowing like liquid gold in Fort Knox. If you asked nicely, the concession stand girl would squirt an extra stream of deliciousness onto your frosty ice shavings, or even mix your favorite flavors to create a unique concoxion of your naming. We bragged more about our creations than our catches.

Joseph's kids will never eat Slush Puppies on Locust Street, but they have their own equally special memories. They will remember racing down the stairs to the Rincon half a block away. They will remember the pain of saving up for a special treat and the joy of finally having it. The will remember the colors, smells, and tastes of the candy store. Even if they forget the details, they will remember how much fun they had together, not just in the candy store, but at school, at the park, on the bus, and on the sidewalk. They will never forget the moments in time when they felt exactly like kids.