JULIE ANN STEVENS

I hate white gummy bears and green dots.

But I never throw them away — at least not right away. 

They get piled up in odd places in my office, posing as interesting accessories I don’t give another thought to until — well, there’s an emergency.

In this emergency state, I am happy to have the once discarded hateful candies.  After dusting them off a bit, I cram them in my mouth with a flourish and experience initial euphoria.

Most of the time, though — truth be told — they never make it much further than my tongue. 

After playing around with them for awhile I am struck — make that bashed over the head — with the taste that turned me off in the first place and end up spitting the chewed up sticky mouthful of goo into the trash faster than you can say —

wham, bam, thank you m’am.

And so there you have it, the prize in the Cracker Jacks —

Just go ahead and throw ’em right away — or, if it’s you that happens to be the candy on the shelf —

Get off and run. 

And never look back.