Erin Murphy

April 15, 2004

Erin’s Adventures in Candy Land

Why do I even bother? I just spent four hours working on calculus homework and I still failed. Yet, for some reason I do not really care. Firstly, when will I ever use sequences and series in real life? I do not want to be an engineer, and I bet even they just plug it into calculators or some sort of robot to crunch the numbers. What is the point of turning ourselves into robots when there are already many robotic machines in the world. What is the point of college at all? Are we becoming more like robots or discovering more of who we are?

“Well, the truth is, you are becoming more like Milk Duds,” I hear behind me. Without turning around, I respond, “Well, that’s just ludicrous. If you are going to make a comment without actually knowing an answer, you should do like I have learnt to do: bull shit with confidence and use words that you think might have some relevance. This is always the way to go. With ‘Milk Duds’ you had no chance. I mean they are chocolate covered caramels. Surely you don’t mean that we are at University to become a piece of cheap, I mean grossly overpriced, movie candy.” He quickly replied in a rather arrogant tone, “Why yes, I mean that exactly. “ At this I could take no more so I turned around to see the culprit, and to my surprise, it was a box of Mild Duds. Apparently this was a successful college graduate. I laughed at my funny thought. In rebellion against calculus and all that is concrete in this world, I decided to continue my discussion with the box of Milk Duds. It seemed quite distracted during our discussion and kept looking at its watch. Finally, he said, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”(1) He quickly ran off mumbling something I could not understand. Obviously I was intrigued. Who would not be? It was a talking Milk Duds box with a watch that was running. So I followed it. We ran and ran until we got to the vending machine. Here there was a man that was refilling the machine, and Milky, the Milk Duds box, jumped in his hands right as he was putting the next handful in. It was the biggest vending machine I had ever seen. Somehow, I just jumped right in the top of it.

Wow, I am falling for such a great distance! I must be heading toward the bottom of the vending machine quickly. How have I not hit yet? I knew these things were deeper than they look. All of a sudden I heard a song playing…

Sugar, ah, honey, honey
You are my candy girl
And this is Candy Land, its true
Honey, ah, sugar, sugar
You are my candy girl

BAM! I fell on a ground that was rather sticky, however sweet. Soon, I saw Milky running into what looked like the Peanut Brittle House of the land. For the bottom of a vending machine, it sure was clean. All the dropped candies seemed to keep their village rather nice. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the UT campus. There were the bum-bums along the main licorice path, but altogether…it was sweet! Anyway, enough with that. So, I followed Milky to the Peanut Brittle House, but of course I was too big to enter. Grrrrr. So, I sat in on what seemed to be a class of logic. It seemed like nonsense to me. It was taught by a Goober too. They do not know anything. There was homework assigned out the wazoo that all seemed pointless to me. I mean, who cares whether it is true if you can find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a lollipop? Well, I had nothing better to do, and I do love the taste of lollipops so I thought I would give the homework a try. Right as I was about to take a lick, I heard a song…

Lollipop lollipop
Oh lolli lolli lolli
Lollipop lollipop.....

This sure is a musical Candy Land, I thought. Oh well, I am still going to do my homework. So, I took a lick, and suddenly I was tiny. Ahhhhh! What is that? It looks like burnt-orange blood…and it’s coming my way! All of a sudden I found myself swimming in a pool of burnt-orange blood. Or was it the Molasses Swamp? Maybe molasses is candy’s blood. It must be. There must be some very hard-core fans here in Candy Land for them to bleed burnt-orange. I was not sure, I just knew I had to paddle. Finally I made it into the Peanut Brittle House. All around me were pictures of Milk Dud boxes. They were everywhere. Statues and paintings, they were suffocating me. I think they worshipped the Milk Duds instead of Godiva. Thankfully they offered sprites and cokes as well. This was by far the nicest place I had seen thus far in Candy Land. I managaed to sneak around and saw many a picture of the Gumdrop team as well. An old, gummy, sour patch adult told me to leave immediately and get to the game before the start. So I ran out before I got in real trouble with any other of these MD-worshippers.

Back into the flood of blood I went. This is the end. My life is going to end in the bottom of a vending machine. I can never withstand these rapids and boulders. Wait, aha, of course, the boulders are lollipops, and they are singing to me again. So I will take another lick of one. Yes! It worked. I am bigger! In fact, I am the perfect size. I will now go see what all this fuss is about over the Gumdrop game. Walking in, I immediately felt terribly out of place. Every candy was very primitive and all of the orange color. How odd, I know they don’t make that many orange skittles. What? They don’t even make orange M&M’s. These candies are lying to themselves. As if realizing that all the colors on candies are just masks hiding the true identity of the sugar within was not bad enough, I then saw what a true candy cult sounds like. They all screamed at the top of their lungs, “Break their shell, break their shell, make ‘em eat sweets!” How crude, I thought. I have got to get out of here. So I ran down the stairs as quickly as I could to escape the candy cult.

Once I was of the scary, barbaric throne of evil, I wandered along through the grounds when finally I ran into a jolly Jelly Bean named Mr. Bump. He lived atop a mountain of spilt sugar from pixie sticks. I went and stared at him, hoping he would help me. After a while he asked, “Who are you?” (2) I answered by saying my name was Erin, and then asked him who he was. “But, who are you? There is more than a name to who you are. You look about the age of someone who just cares about that sort of thing. Now, tell me who you are,” he said with an iron-fist. I asked him if you could just stop this nonsense and tell me how I could find the Candy Castle so I could return home. “[I] do not exist to give you the answers. [My function] is to ask the questions,” (3) he replied. Well, that is pure and utter nonsense. How am I to get out of this vending machine now if I cannot find the Candy Castle. He told me to use my ability of discovery learning to find my way home. I was lost.

I turned away from the jolly jelly bean more confused than before I had met him. After this I walked through the Sour Patch. This place was hopping with diversity. It was a relief from the gumdrop game. Candies of all different colors were at different booths providing information about Candy’s Rights, gluttony in some far away vending machine, how we can support the effort to increase the lie that a sugar-free diet will work, and much much more. It was a definite relief from the gumdrop game, but kind of overwhelming with all of the over-zealous candies fighting for my signature, money, or support.

I had to just sit down somewhere. So, I found a nice place to rest near a pond of burnt-orange molasses. There were funny looking creatures that were half gummy bear and half snowdrop. They basked in the dimly lit area. Their sluggish behavior was relaxing to me. So, I basked in the dimly lit area as well. After a short nap, I had a great conversation with the halfies, although, they seemed to be a little bit confused. Of course, they could not tell me where the Candy Castle was either. Apparently the jolly jelly bean had gotten to them as well.

Then, I turned around and there it was: the Candy Castle! I ran to it, and scaled the building to the top. Then, I jumped off, because I knew that after all the weird things that had happened today, I ought to be able to fly as well. Why not? So, I could fly out of the vending machine and back to my dorm. This was too much craziness for one day; it had to end. Just as I was about to hit the ground, I heard…

I know a guy who's tough but sweet
He's so fine, he can't be beat
He’s got everything that I desire
Sets the summer sun on fire
I want Candy, I want Candy
Go to see himwhen the sun goes down
Ain't no finer boy in town

Darnit, that is my alarm clock! I have to get up, NOW! What a great dream though.

Candy's just what the doctor ordered
He’s so sweet, he makes my mouth water
I want Candy, I want Candy (3 times)
Candy on the beach, there's nothing better
But I like Candy when it's wrapped in a sweater
Some day soon I'll make him mine
Then I'll have Candy all the time
I want Candy, I want Candy