Dear Skittles, What the fuck are you trying to do to us? Did you really think you'd get away with it? Did you really think the righteous people of the world would stand idly by and let you rape their mouths without crying out for justice? Stop selling chocolate Skittles. I have no demand beyond that. Actually, no, that's a lie. I have a whole list of demands: 1. Stop selling chocolate Skittles. 2. Apologize publicly. 3. Jettison all remaining chocolate Skittles—or any regular Skittles which may have been tainted through accidental contact—into space. 4. Euthanize all the diseased, caged rabbits whose shit you harvest to produce the “pudding” flavor. 5. Fire the Japanese guy in marketing who thought this was a good idea. 6. Put the entirety of your research and development budget towards inventing the technology required to make me forget there ever was such a thing. The worst part of all this, the bitterest betrayal, lies in the fact that you KNEW I’d have to try them. You know damn well I’m not going stand in line at CVS to pay for my nasal spray and Donettes and not scan the candy rack. And what’s waiting there for me? Lo and behold, an airtight bag of baboon crap. But I didn’t know that. How could I? To my naïve mind, this was a new experience waiting to be enjoyed, an exciting opportunity to take my taste buds on a chocolaty ride to cocoa town, with a possible pit stop in the unincorporated municipality of Donetteville. Of course, I had my doubts. You don’t survive Circus Peanuts and Lucas and not realize there’s shitty candy out there. But you had my trust, Skittles. You’re one of the respectable candies; one of the good old boys. Since time out of mind, you’ve been there, right alongside M&M’s and Snickers, reliable as a Toyota pickup hauling a load of delicious fruit that hurts to chew. Even Sour Skittles were all right; I mean, you waited for Warheads and Sour Patch Kids to pave the way, then you went in. You were smart about it. You didn’t blunder down the hall of candydom farting on black licorice and trying to get me to eat it. You’ve kept your image fresh, too. You’ve got those funny non-sequitor commercials with the sheep-people, and your bags are about as colorful as they come. So when that little voice in my head said “Michael, chocolate Skittles is a terrible idea,” I just stuffed it down into my subconscious with my summer camp memories and all the gay stuff. But now, it’s all changed. Now I don’t care how many sheep-headed people or Skittle/Midas hybrids or piñata men tell me to lick their brown rainbow, it won’t erase the holocaust that ripped though my mouth that day, or the hours of my life lost retching into a sink and gargling turpentine after downing a handful of “brownie batter.” For a while, I was convinced my bag had been accidentally filled with compressed chemical pellets or faulty ball bearings. Each hideous flavor was like a depth charge plummeting into my stomach, there to explode and expel a lethal dose of sour hate. Except S’mores. S’mores was OK. But that’s no excuse. Especially when the colors you chose are so similar, it’s nearly impossible to sort the merely crappy flavors from the candy-coated abortions. Note to Skittles: no one wants to eat abortions. That’s like the first thing that was established in the history of candy. That’s like RULE ONE. The saddest thing of all is that now I don’t even like regular Skittles. Your hot Carl of a candy so coated my tongue with caramel excrement that even the fruity deliciousness of standard, God-fearing, American Skittles have lost their luster. The memories are just too painful. So congratulations. You made the Attack of the Clones of candy. If there’s any justice in the world, the next time you’re heard from will be your testimony at the Hague when you’re tried for crimes against humanity. Sincerely, A guy who’s way too into candy.

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When not using his own tongue as your first line of defense, Michael serves as head writer for and co-founder of Those Aren't Muskets!

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