Confession time. I am an addict. I am a candy-a-holic.

It’s been 12 hours since I had my last candy (and it’s only 8 o’clock in the morning).

My favourite hit lately has been a handful of black balls followed by a bump of humbugs, right before bedtime.

The inscription on my tombstone will read, “She died doing what she loved best. Choking on a black ball.”

The OG of candy is penny candy. Before Stephen Harper’s Conservatives got rid of the penny in 2013, a penny could still buy something.

Every time we would go to a cottage or on a road trip, we would stock up on penny candy. Dave and I once drove all the way to Yellowstone National Park on a tub of sour keys and ju jubes.

At the cottage, penny candy is like gold. Sometimes it’s for sharing, sometimes it’s for hoarding. We’ve even had people steal each other’s penny candy in the dead of the night, or worse in broad daylight. The screams of horror and dismay were heard across the lake when the victims discovered their stash was stolen the next morning.

Some friends invite people over for beers and charcuterie, our friends would invite people on the island over for watermelon and peach sours, strawberry and banana cream chews and black balls.

You can spot a candyhead a mile away. I once worked with a guy who went to the gym every day at lunch. This isn’t noteworthy, except for the fact Mike hated working out. I asked him if he hated going to the gym every day, why did he do it? He had an addiction to candy and refused to give it up, so the only way he could manage his weight was to work out every day.

Not all penny candy or candy stores are created equal. Black balls are like a rare black pearl in the candy world. Not all candy shops carry them.

At 60 years of age, I am still discovering new sugar sensations. On our last trip to the Maritimes, I discovered Bonds of London Rhubarb and Custard “sugar-coated rhubarb and vanilla flavoured boiled sweets” (the British have such a lovely way of making candy sound high-brow). Absolutely divine.

Then there are brands that keep reinventing themselves, like Popeye cigarettes, or “candy sticks” which changed their name in 2000 when they realized promoting smoking with kids was maybe not a good idea.

Remember jawbreakers (or gobstoppers if you’re in the United States)? In Grade 8 at lunch time, we’d go to the local convenience store and buy these long-lasting treats that resembled a golf ball with layers and layers of flavours inside them. They were so hard, you could lose a filling if you stopped sucking and chomped down on one. (Fun fact: if you google jawbreaker, one of the searches that comes up is “Can a jawbreaker stop a bullet?”)

You also must have discerning taste when it comes to where you satiate your sugar rush. You have your new, modern high-brow stores like I Love Sugar in Myrtle Beach or Ricardo’s Kandy Korner in the Eaton Centre in Toronto. Sure, they have bins and bins of candy and spaces so sterile you could eat candy you dropped by accident or on purpose right off the floor, but I prefer the good ol’ fashioned general store candy with creaky wooden floors, bins with proper lids, and tiny pincers to fish for the perfect treasure.

Yes, there are Allsorts of candy in this world, you just need to be a kid in a candy store to reach for the sugar high.

Ed note: An interesting side note, one of my most read blog posts is The Ultimate Frozen Treat on the Lola. Do you remember Lolas? Still miss them!