• About Bailing Bucket

    Bailing Bucket is the creative blog of Rhett Soveran.

    Rhett lives in Calgary, AB, works as the Web Editor of WestJet's up! magazine and is married to Leah... More about Rhett Soveran.

    Each post has at least two lies (that's probably a lie).

The Candy Conspiracy

When I was a kid Klein’s Food Mart was our convenience store. I don’t think they exist anymore and I think they were local to Regina only. They had huge 63¢ slurpees. 2 chocolate bars for 99¢. And only a few minutes to get there on a bike. Oh, and of course, all the 5¢ candies that you could want.

Now, let me be upfront, I’m a writer and I don’t know anything about economics, but I think I understand the common principle that everything gets more expensive over time. What’s that word? I forget it. It’s like economic swelling. Inflation.

Yesterday, I had a little extra time to consider economic theory as I got gas at my local Husky station. I had the extra time because it’s a full-serve station and I was waiting around inside for the attendant to finish filling my car. Not only that, but there was a second employee inside the small shop that stared at me while I shuffled around the store. As I didn’t want to converse with the mouth-breather behind the counter, I began to review the prices of the candy and tried to look really interested in that so the mouth-breather wouldn’t talk to me.

Now that I am 27, I feel I am on the far side towards 30. Late 20s. Not mid 20s. And as I get closer to 30 the more I find myself saying things like: I remember you when you were… When I was a kid there was… In my day it only cost… And as I surveyed the prices at the Husky gas station and saw 2 chocolate bars for $3 I thought—It used to be 99¢. And this is when I learned of the candy conspiracy!

All the prices in the candy aisles went up. Inflation, they say. However, 5¢ candies—you know, blue whales, sour soothers, gummy worms, gummy bears, strawberries—are still 5¢. CONSPIRACY! Where is the inflation? How can it be possible that in 20 years inflation has not affected these delicious candies?

Well, after making this stunning discovery I started to wonder if any inflation was necessary at all. I started wondering what else has stayed the same. I started to wonder if women are actually the conspirators because… well, women just seem like the obvious group to blame for a candy conspiracy. Every time I offer Leah candy she says no. And then I paid for the gas and went home.

Oh, but before I paid for the gas, the mouth-breather offered to sell me bottled water so that I could get $1 off gas by paying $3 for the water. But I told the attendant that I have water at home and it comes out of the tap. And then the mouth-breather went on to explain that it’s all about up-selling and marketing and that they have to offer it to everyone. Then I had to explain how I was just joking and that I understand the concept of up-selling, but the mouth-breather didn’t understand so I had to draw a picture and act it out which then turned into a rousing game of charades mixed with Pictionary…

Lost story short, there is a candy conspiracy and I am onto you conspirators!

This entry was posted in Featured. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • Subscribe & Share

    Subscribe by RSS RSS or Email and article.

4 Comments

  1. Posted July 6, 2009 at 3:43 pm | Permalink

    It is, indeed, a mystery. I blame the mouth-breather. He was probably just playing dumb. He’s actually the mastermind behind it all; he just works as a clerk at Husky to throw everyone off of his trail.

  2. Posted July 7, 2009 at 12:37 pm | Permalink

    There’s a candy store in Eau Claire Market that I used to spend all my money at when I was working at Marketwire that has rows and rows of those candies, and then you pay by weight. It’s awesome.

    • Posted July 7, 2009 at 1:40 pm | Permalink

      I love candy. I buy it bulk all the time at Superstore. There’s something about those tiny scoops that are so pleasing.

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

  • Uneetee