I can't remember the last time I ate Milk Duds. I am sure, in passing, I must have eaten some. But my experience with Milk Duds is very slim, considering the amount of time I spend thinking about, purchasing, and consuming candy. Candy bars are my accompaniment on late night rambles and cross-country journeys, and I've cataloged our emotional reaction to them, the sociological implications of their marketing, the phenomonological status of the act of consumption, and the cross cultural consumption of candy bars. But about Milk Duds? Nope. I think I remember some of my earliest encounters with Milk Duds--- a vague memory of being in the dining room of my grandparents that I didn't know as well, and of them being on the shelf, along with the fine china and other food items that I didn't really understand, and them being offered to me, because Milk Duds were a candy that children might like, in the same way that a cribbage board was a toy that children might play with. And presumably, in the past decades, I must have eaten some more Milk Duds. They must have been in my Halloween candy. Maybe a friend had some? Maybe I got some on sale? But, as a person whose parasocial relationship with candy bars is one of my defining emotional traits, I seem to have no understanding of what Milk Duds even are. They stand in a weird visual periphery, along with Oh! Henry, Skor and Charleston Chew--- candy bars that someone must be buying and eating, but that for some reason, have remained untasted by me, and that indeed, I don't even specifically remember seeing.
Years previously, I created the concept of the The Candy Bar Continuum, an instrument which sorts candy on a scale from sugary to filling. However, I think we need another axis to describe candy. This is the axis of imaginary values. Milk Duds can not be analyzed as falling along the normal continuum, but should be described as including aspects of existence that don't exist in reality.
I kind of feel guilty saying this---after all, Milk Duds must have self-esteem problems already with that name. But it must be admitted by even the most cursory student of confections and candy that Milk Duds exist on their own, somewhat hidden level of reality.
This article was inspired by this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_really,_really,_really_stupid_article_ideas_that_you_really,_really,_really_should_not_create