I Made My Millennial Eat Old Lady Candy & Here's What Happened

by Eve Vawter

Images via Eve Vawter, Ariel Leuenberger/Flickr

One of the most absurd tropes of aging is how once ladies reach a certain age, they basically start eating the yuckiest, most offensive garbage candy to be found in the candy aisle/bottom of their handbag/nursing home waiting room. I'm not sure this is necessarily a true fact, I mean, I'm basically elderly and I love all the best candy, so I decided to investigate what constitutes old lady candy. And make my 19-year-old kid eat it. Here's what he had to say about it. 

Ribbon Candy

"Um, so the ribbon candy. I don't know if I would feel comfortable giving this to my grandmother because it's basically shattered glass in candy form. It's hard ribbons of hard candy. They aren't soft as you might imagine and they basically break off into tiny shards and you may be able to kill someone if you broke it off into their meal. Rating is 7/10."

*Editor's note: He basically gave a murder weapon a 7/10 on the candy scale. 

Meltaway Dinner Mints

"Um, these come in different colors but they all taste like I'm having my teeth cleaned at the dentist's office. But it's strange because, um, I can feel cavities forming as I eat these. Rating is 6/10."

Starlight Mints

"These are pretty much entirely useless and unattractive unless you just left a restaurant. I mean, I would never ever eat one of these. Like I would never eat one of these unless I was leaving Olive Garden. Rating 3/10."

Assorted Hard Candy

"These are all pretty decent to be honest. There's a grape one that's pretty good, and also one that is kinda like an atomic fireball. This is a pretty solid bag of candy. Rating 8/10."

*Editor's note: He demanded a paper towel to spit these candies into as he tasted them. 

Butterscotch Candy

"Um, I feel like butterscotch has kinda gone the way of nougat. Because it's totally lost touch with my generation. Um, I feel like people my age have no idea what's going on with butterscotch. It's just one of those flavors that's been made obsolete by salted caramel. Butterscotch is basically crappy salted caramel. I think butterscotch was made popular because old ladies used them to soothe their throats after chain smoking all day. Rating 5/10."

Strawberry Bon-Bons

"Hold on... I'm trying to like let this melt to see if it has a gooey center, because a lot of time these things do."

Six minutes later... 

"Oh, I like them. Um yeah, so these are the best so far. They come in a fun little wrapper. These are really great because they have a gooey center on the inside but yeah, like I even remember these from when I was little getting them from my grandma and I liked them back then, too. I think these are the best old lady candy. Rating: 9/10."

Orange Slices

"Yeah, uh, these orange slices are like if you like Jujubes but are afraid of variety because it's all just basically one flavor. They get all stuck up in your teeth and they taste almost too much like real oranges. So it tastes off. It's too much like a real orange. Rating: 3/10."

Circus Peanuts

"This candy doesn't make any goddamn sense. It's like shitty marshmallows that are shaped like peanuts but taste like bananas. It doesn't make sense in any world. They taste like really stale packing peanuts that collapse in your mouth and I feel like the Great Depression might have something to do with these. Um, like, ugh, if I were circus elephant and someone fed me these I'd be pissed. I would just be pissed, you know. I'm glad nobody buys these for me. Rating: -0/10."

Then he said: 

"I'm going to have some damn Jolly Ranchers or some real candy now."