Updates on the week that is.

You know how, just on Monday, I was kvetching that there was candy corn in the dollar store advertised as Halloween candy, right? And in July, more than three months before the actual holiday of Halloween?

One of the objections I anticipated was that dollar stores are notorious for selling whatever they have whenever they have it, and I can't expect seasonality there.

Well: Tuesday, at PetSmart:

Really, PetSmart? Really?

Look, I understand that pet shops can't quite get into the Back-to-School swing that every other store is; after all, obedience school is every day (or for many dogs, never). But do we have to jump all the way over a quarter of the year to start with the orange and black? Please.

And yet, I was in a supermarket yesterday and also saw Halloween candy. I would have taken another picture but I was too depressed. IT IS STILL JULY, PEOPLE.

On another topic, I fear I owe a minor apology to C. Howard and Company, makers of this stuff:

On Sunday, I said that Choward's Scented Gum was "very strong ... if someone [is] indulging in the gum or candy you can smell him coming. I have no evidence to prove this, but my anecdotal experience says that in the greater New York area in the 1970s, sales of Howard's violet candies shot up as marijuana use became more common." Well, I happened to be in a tobacconist's on Tuesday that sold the gum, so I bought a pack. 

I was chewing a piece last night not five feet from my wife, and she did not catch the scent. The dog did, but he's got a superhuman nose---or he just saw me chewing something and wanted to know what it was. (His current life goal is to lick the inside of my mouth while I'm eating, something about which we do not see eye-to-eye.) Furthermore, I found the flavor quite enjoyable, much less perfumey than I remembered. Either the gum is smaller or less potent than I recall, or the air quality much different from the days when I would be knocked back by a guy chewing it. I can believe that my taste has expanded to include floral (violet-flavored) candies, as opposed to just mint or fruit flavors. 

So there is my update: Halloween co-conspirators with the dollar store and an apology to Choward's. At Vitamin Fred we don't wait more than 40 years to disavow errors, unlike some lesser news outlets.