Valentine's Day... in March!

Okay, not really, but here's some candy for you.

Actually, I bought these after Valentine's in a post-Valentine's Day sale (25 cents for the box) after I got my driving privileges back following my concussion. I didn't buy them because I was so hungry for sugar. No, it was because this was the first time in 118 years that Necco was not doing the Conversation Hearts.

Necco, the storied candy manufacturer that was founded in 1901, gave up the ghost last July when it closed its doors and sold off its operations. The company, known originally the New England Confectionery Company, had been making heart-shaped candies with little sayings on them from 1901 to 2018. This was the only year in living memory that we've been heartless.

Or we would have been, but cheap candy magnate Brach's picked up the slack with these Tiny Conversation Hearts. A quick search of the U.S. Trademark Office database shows no trademark, live or dead, for "Conversation Hearts," and this late in the game it would be tough to show Brach's was stealing a unique idea of value. Anyway, lovebirds who wanted to share nearly flavorless romantic candy had someplace to go, so it was kind of a public service. Maybe Brach's has been making them for years in competition with Necco. I have no idea. I've been off the dating circuit for a while.

Brach's calls them Tiny Conversation Hearts, but are they really? Well, here they are next to a pencil.

Kinda small. Smaller than Necco's? I don't know.

We should be able to do a coronary candy competition next year, though. Spangler, the company that makes approximately a kabillion candy canes every Christmas (seriously, 2.7 million a day!), bought the rights to most of Necco's headliner candies, including Necco Wafers, Canada Mints, and Sweetheart Conversation Hearts. They've as much as promised a return of these old-time sweets in 2020. So there's something.

We can buy a box of each and have a heart-to-heart. If we remember to do it. Meh. The candies are kind of dull. Brach's taste kind of like miscellaneous fruit. It's hard at my age to get worked up about it.

I'm blasé about the whole thing. Maybe I need a hug. Can I buy a box with just the "Hug Me" hearts in it?