Counting Candy

Halloween candy is the greatest! Unfortunately, these days, most companies don't produce novelty Halloween candy any more due to the expense. They simply offer the same candy they sell year-round, albeit in smaller sizes.

Does anyone remember Tingles, by Allan? A far superior candy to Rockets. I'm not sure why Allan stopped making this Rocket-style candy, but you can be sure it was not because Rockets were destroying them in sales. In fact, it seems that Rockets only took off when Tingles dropped out of the scene. My search for the Allan candy website has resulted in nothing. It was online last year, but is gone now, just like the candy itself.

However, there are Rockets-a-plenty, and the closer we get to Halloween, the larger the bags seem to get. Suz is a Rockets Freak, and therefore persuaded me to buy this 4 pound bag of Rockets.

The bag states that it contains 4 lbs. of Rockets, or 1.8 kg of Rockets, and displays "240 rolls" in the corner. I am always suspicious of these types of claims, so I decided to do what has probably been done a million times before. I counted.

I dumped the Rockets out of the bag, and they instantly fell into formation, obviously due to their army training. Separated into groups of five, these candies were easy to count. My guess at the total was 239 rolls. Why? I just figure, if they're out to make a buck, they're going to try and rip us off. By ripping off the public by such an insignificant amount, nobody will complain, and they'll get away with it. With that extra profit, they'll produce more Rockets, and start ripping off kids in Australia.

After a short time, I had my answer, and I was wrong! There were 246 rolls. Then I remembered that the number of rolls, even though it is advertised on the bag, doesn't matter. Why? Food products are sold by weight. So that number, 240, was irrelevant. But either way, I was impressed that we got extra rolls.

That being said, if the bag stated 20 rolls, and I got 226 extra rolls, I would not be impressed.

Now, each roll of Rockets contains 15 candies. I used my grade school math skills to determine that 15 candies x 246 rolls = 3690 candies. Then I used some different math (division) to determine that if you were to eat one Rocket per second, it would take 61 and a half minutes to eat them all. But I don't know anybody who can eat 4 lbs. of anything.

A challenge:
Buy a 1.8 kg bag of Rockets, and eat them as fast as you can. Don't stop until they're all in your stomach. Post a comment with your results.