Abomination

Around 2:30 this afternoon, I walked over to the vending machine because I was feeling a mite peckish (are Americans allowed to feel a mite peckish, or is that reserved for Brits?) and I thought perhaps I'd get me a pair of Reese's Peanut Butter cups, one to eat now and one to save for later. So when I get to the machine, what do I see? This...this complete clusterfuck:



It was too horrible to comtemplate. These albino pieces of shit had taken up residence in the slot normally reserved for my beloved, (and chocolate,) *regular* Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I quickly ran down to the first floor. The machine down there was also full of these. 5th floor -- same story. I couldn't believe it. Damn that vending machine dude! Damn him to hell. (Which, incidentally, he already has been, specifically for replacing the spearmint sugarless gum with carefree bubble gum and/or Juicy Fruit.) I've long suspected him of stocking the machine with crap nobody wants so he doesn't have to fill it as often.

It was my first exposure to these abominations, and I was not ready. Hershey's has officially jumped the shark, to use an over-used expression just to say I used an over-used expression. In an effort to attract those who do not like chocolate, they have created a taste sensation, and by "sensation" I mean something so disgusting you will probably have the sensation you are about to hurl.

I bought one, just so I could see how bad they actually were.

My first impression was not wrong.

First off - and true peanut butter cup aficionados will know instantly what I'm talking about - the smell is gone. Upon opening, you do not smell the intoxicating scent of rich, dark chocolate surrounding the salty goodness of an almost chunky peanut butter. No, what you get instead is the smell of a stale Keebler peanut butter cookie deep-fried in synthetic motor oil.

The second thing was the color. Even though I expected it, it was still a shock. There was no glossy brown perfection. It was the fish-belly white of the Undead; the waxy, pale complexion of a blood-sucking creature of the night. The color of mushrooms and cave fish.

I should have tossed that crap into the garbage right then and there, but I made a terrible mistake, and invited it into my mouth.

What hit me first was the sickening sweetness, and the fact that the texture said "chocolate" but my taste buds said "pure cane sugar." It tasted like I had eaten the icing off a danish.

When I hit the peanut butter, it got a little better, but not much. This was not two great tastes that taste great together.

This was not even one great taste.

Somehow, the albino sugar coating had robbed the peanut butter of its awesome power. It tasted way too salty. So basically Hershey's new ad campaign should be "one formerly great taste that tastes like ass when combined with this other taste that really isn't a flavor at all but is really more of a sweetness." Also, listen carefully here, Hershey people -- there is no such thing as "white chocolate" at least as far as myself and the FDA are concerned.

Yeah, so you use a little cocoa butter instead of vegetable oil, but that doesn't cut it in my book. These things truly suck, and I demand that you remove them from my vending machine immediately. And while you're at it, you can get rid of the Fast Break, Reese's Stiks and the Nutrageous bars too. You guys are fast becoming the Taco Bell of the candy world. Just how many different combinations of the same ingredients can you rename, repackage and resell? Call it a day already and fire your marketing department.

You can't improve upon the original perfection, unless you can figure out some hi-tech way to keep them from melting in the delivery truck in the summer. I say this because if I unknowingly buy one more liquefied and re-hardened peanut butter cup that has some sort of white chalky shit on it, I am hand delivering it to your CEO's pie hole.

Seriously, if you need a new idea, you would be better off selling a pair of uncoated peanut butter balls in a strawberry-flavored fruit roll-up sack. Call that one Nutrageous.

I probably wouldn't buy it, but it sure would be funny to blog about.