Tuesday, March 11, 2003

As trustees of Secondhand Rants, gentle readers, you probably wish to know where our business is going. You probably suspect I make business decisions with the plastic spinner from a certain board game, don’t you? Well, just so you know, I lost my spinner today, so I’ve resorted to reaching back into the mists of my childhood for inspiration.

It is summertime, 1988, Long Island. A deli. I longingly glance at a pack of candy cigarettes on a shelf high up. I ask my mum sweetly for one, making sure to bump my childish fancy up to full crank.

“No,” she says with a startling finality.

“But they’re candy cigarettes, not real ones!” I implore.

“No,” she flatly replies.

“They’re candy!” I exclaim, faintly aware of repeating myself.

“No.”

And in that moment–perhaps some of this is dramatized, I realize–I pumped my chubby little fist at the sky and shouted, shouted as a sweeping orchestral score played for me, that I would have my candy cigarettes one day.

So I come before you today, gentle board of trustees, with the unveiling of our new Sweet Decadence™ product line. We will naturally target, how do I put this, IMPRESSIONABLE YOUTH. And the products? Candy versions of all types of “deviant” behavior. I’m thinking gummy tourniquets, chocolate used syringes, peppermint hookahs, peppermint hookers, frosted prophylactics, and I want you to think sweet, sweet decadence with me.

Thank you, Roald Dahl, for the inspiration. Our shipment of migrant Oompah-Loompahs will arrive shortly.