I sure do love me some WTF candies.

And I loved Lik-m-Aid Fun Dip when I was a wee lad. White vanilla stick that you licked and dipped into various shades of sugar. Kids dream. I’m sure the sugar packets had flavor but for me it was all about the white stick, which was a vanilla milk flavor and totally original. It was like 2 candies all in one- and really like 4 candies since you got 3 pockets of sugar color.

Tonight I’m staring at the f-ing weirdest candy in the world. Not weird gross like creamy jelly turkish delight. Not weird lame like a sickly syrupy marachino cherry in the middle of a perfectly good piece of chocolate. But weird insane like a test tube of cocaine with a licorice straw inside.

Does this picture do it justice? Again. WTF?

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

I really don’t know where to start. ok- so the package is a yellow and orange tubular with a little black shading and lettering. Not even bright yellow and orange to glimmer and catch the wandering eye of the lil ‘uns seeking sweet. These are strangely muted colors, in the shape of a little piece of dynamite. When I first saw them I thought it was a really big firecracker from 1979.

Now maybe it’s because young Katherine labored these over the Atlantic from Scotland, and all the way to Cali, but when I opened them, powder sprayed all over my hands like I was Tony Montana checking a fresh Ki from Colombia. And most of it was wedged in what seemed like a test tube squashed full of old flour. And there was a black nib sticking out. I’ve never seen these before so I didn’t know what to do. So I pulled the nib and flour goes everywhere, of course, like I’m in a Laurel and Hardy “Making Pie!” sketch. And pieces of crack-looking white chunks fly across the counter. Again – look at that picture.

So I gathered what I assume would be the shitiest candy I ever tasted, ahem, took some pictures, and here we are. The Lik-m-Aid training kicks in and I lick the stick and shoved it in the powder and then licked it again. Hmm. I do this a few more times. This is the experience. This is what you do. And I say to you again. WTF. The powder sugar substance is uber sweet, slightly acidic, maybe lemony?, and melts fast with a long lingering aftermath. Not so much. If you asked “hey you like it?” My reply is “Not so much.”

I focus on the licorcie stick and…I like that. It’s reallllllllly hard. You have to chew on it a while to get it maleable enough to bite off. And then it’s chewy in the mouth for a long time – doesn’t break down quickly – and the flavor is true licorice. Pretty strong and not really for kids; it’d be a tad bitter for the young ones. Which makes me wonder: who in god’s name are these for!? Cuz you sure didn’t wow anyone with the packaging, and the powdered sugar thing is novel for 6 licks, and then you end up with one single piece of black licorice. And if I wanted black licorice I sure as shit wouldn’t have thought to glance at this package in the candy aisle. Aint no adults buying these. You wouldn’t be caught dead in public eating these. People would think you are about to get coked out of your mind while you chew on a branch. Not good. Makes no sense. These are wrong.

Jonny gave me 3 packages from his stash and over the course of a few weeks I opened them all, tried them all, and threw them all out way before I even got a 1/4 way through each “fountain.” And they call it a fountain because…it’s long? I really don’t know. My face just crinkles up in idiocy as I stare at these. Maybe it’s a Brit thing. And don’t get me wrong – there was nary an anglophile such as I. But these things are just plain weird and simply not good. They confuse me. I don’t know what to do with them except throw them out. I can’t even be clever with them. I’m baffled.