Fun Dip is as close to crack cocaine that I hope to ever get.
Basically, a Fun Dip is a package of extremely sweet/sour powder with a slight fruit flavoring, and a candy stick. The powder is analogous to that of a Pixie Stick, but there is the one major difference; it's not in a ridiculous tube that resists being emptied into your mouth in one fell swoop. Thus, a Fun Dip is a pixie stick made for rapid consuption. The equivalent of funneling or shotgunning an inappropriate amount of sugar, flavor, and citric acid, plus a mild candy pacifier to give you something to crunch. Clearly, if this were the advertised selling point for the product, parents would be in an uproar. So what do the marketers do?
The makers of Fun Dip, those diabolical dealers at Lik-M-Aid (note the anagram for milk in the name, suggesting wholesomeness and nutrition), convinced the FDA that this candy will be consumed at a reasonable rate by using the following process:
- Tear off top of packaging.
- Remove Lik-Em-Stik.
- Lick Lik-Em-Stik (first introduction to flavor, barely even noticeable).
- Dip moistened Lik-Em-Stik into package of flavor powder.
- Lick off flavor powder (second flavor is introduced, Lik-Em-Stik is no longer candy but a shovel used to get that lovely god-powder into your gaping maw.)
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 until powder is depleted.
- Eat remaining Lik-Em-Stik (now merely a consolation prize after the pure adrenaline that was the powdered magick.)
- Discard of packaging properly.
Right. While perhaps some people consume their first Fun Dip in this manner, the average 12-year-old with $.40 more in his pocket will do the following:
- Buy four more packs (flavor does not matter, just give the candy!).
- Tear first packet open.
- Pour entire contents of powder packet into mouth.
- Chew the acid dust, stimulating your saliva glands to produce enough moisture to quench the powder.
- Let the euphoria of having a mouthful of lightning wash over you like a cold shower.
- Swallow.
- Consume entire Lik-Em-Stick (previously untouched), as one would eat a horsepill (not surprising, considering their aesthetic similarity).
- Repeat steps 2 through 7, experimenting with two packets at once, and extending how long you can keep the powder/saliva mixture in your mouth, enjoying the rush that the overwhelmed tastebuds provide.
- Tattered wrappings that were Fun Dip packages lay about the ground, like cigarette butts and burnt spoons in the alley outside of a crack house.
I have seen this happen. I have had this happen to me. I have seen formerly attentive Bible Camp attendees become fiends for the fruit gravy. I have seen children, good Christian children, squander upwards of $3 a day on this habit. I have seen epic friendships, forged over three days, torn asunder by kids stealing from each other's "'dip stashes".
Stop the cycles of pain. Please, don't abuse Fun Dip, and don't allow those you love to abuse it. The life you save may be your own.
Honestly, if you must use Fun Dip, please be aware of the rapid high/low cycle. I would equate consuming a pack of Fun Dip to 1/2 a tin of altoids as far as intensity and sugar.