How Coraline Brought Memories a Certain Candy
That my mother hated
“Do not raise your children the way your parents raised you; they were born for a different time.” - Bill Vaughan
Last weekend, I was in my mother’s bedroom with my little sister while she was fixing her hair for school. I was bored being in my room, so I went into hers. My little sister turned on Coraline. Remember the movie about the little girl who kept entering a secret door to see her other parents?
I cannot go into full detail because it is not my favorite movie. I know it is based upon a book, but I have never read it. There is a scene in the movie where Coraline meets Miss Spink and Miss Forcible at their apartment and she sits on the couch. One of the ladies offers Coraline a bowl of candy. This candy was light pink and green and had stripes on it.
“Hey! That is the nasty candy that we had back then,”my mom said.
She is in disgust and anger, just thinking about that candy because there were not any good memories. She tells me this story about how the elderly women in our family became bougee when they started moving on up because they grew up dirt poor. My grandmother, Vera, was raised on a farm with her father who was a dog groomer so that is why she always had dogs. Our grandmother thought that candy was the thang in the eighties. She had no candy other than this one.
It was always stuck together and unwrapped. She would make her eat the candy, not even asking her whether she wanted it. Whenever she had the chance, she used to go to the bathroom and spit out the candy, watching it go down the drain after flushing it.
“Eat that candy girl!”my mom said, mimicking the voices of my grandmother. “How does that candy taste?”she said, her mouth scrunched. “Oh, there is not anything wrong with that candy.”
“That candy was disgusting.”
“Why did she keep offering it to you?” I asked, my voice shaking after laughing so much. “I do not even know myself,”she replied.
I could not believe what she was telling me. There is no way that candy was that terrible to where she pretended to like it so she can find ways to get rid of it. She would also sit on the couch like Coraline in that scene and pretend to keep it in her mouth. She could never say no to her. My aunt Evelyn never had that candy.
She always had peppermints. My mom grew up in an era where it was a certain level of power between children and adults. Kids did what they were told to do because if they did other than that, they would be disciplined, and I do not mean the regular discipline. The discipline in black households: beat with extension cords and slapped hard in the face. I was born in the early 2000s, so I was in the era of Skittles, Reeses, Starbursts, Gummies and Jolly Ranchers.
Every time I went to the dentist, they would never find cavities except for my sister. My mom does not know the name of the candy in Coraline but remembers exactly how it looked and that is how she was able to recognize it. It was like torture, and she had to be obedient. This was a story that I wanted share because it surprises me how much my mother can recall from her childhood. If any of my readers are from Generation X and they know the name of this candy, let me know in the comments.
Question of the day: What is your favorite candy and what do you like about it?
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Janay Ealey
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Comments (1)
Coraline is one of my favorite movies, but this was hilarious. I’m not that into candy. Ice cream is my weakness. Especially the ridiculously expensive pints of artisan ice cream. But I do like dark chocolate covered espresso beans.