Scenes from a Convenience Store: The Chocolate Edition

Have you ever seen those "portion-control" chocolate bars? Like the Nestle Singles or Cadbury Thins? Ever stop and consider what a load of crap that is? These chocolate companies are getting paid almost the same amount of money for substantially less product.

For some perspective, at our store we sell those little Halloween mini-chocolate bars year-round. Our price for one? 25 cents. Our price for the Nestle Single? 89 cents! And you know what? They're practically the same size. Sure, the Nestle Single's a bit bigger, but certainly not enough to justify the price difference.

But whatever, the market's always been based on what people are willing to pay, not on what the product's actually worth. I guess that's what willpower's worth to some people. Although a lot of people buy more than one at a time, and that, my friends, is when I reach for my revolver.


Wheee!!!

I thought the flavoured chocolate bar mania of yesteryear was a bit overdone. Seriously, they even had a lemonade-flavoured Crunchie bar, which was so terrible we had to give it away in surprise bags. Surprise! You just got gipped out of two bucks! Thankfully, after they released the yoghurt versions of several popular brands, people finally had enough sense to say no. However, I never knew other countries had it worse. Here's some of the varieties of Kit Kat they released in Japan: maple syrup, melon, vanilla bean, grape, apple, caramel, kiwi, azuki, and cherry blossom.

A girl came up to the counter last night, grabbed one of the wrapped chocolate-covered cherries, and stared into it like she was some future archaeologist trying to decipher the mysterious runes printed on the package.

Girl: What is this?
Me: It's a chocolate-covered cherry.
Girl: Is it just chocolate?
Me: ...no, it's also got a cherry in it.
Girl: What does it taste like?
Me: Um... chocolate. And cherries.

So she put it down and grabbed a Ferrero Rocher instead. Thank goodness she knew what that was, because if she couldn't grasp chocolate-covered cherries I wouldn't even know where to begin with explaining Ferrero Rochers to her.