Man Discovers the Halloween Candy Bowl Has a Bottom

A LaughParty comic take.

A LaughParty comic take. The following is entirely fictional, and any resemblance to your own pantry is a coincidence your dentist will not find funny.

In a quiet suburban kitchen, a husband we will call Gary is living a lie. The lie is shaped like a large orange plastic bowl with a cartoon pumpkin on the side. According to his wife, the bowl still holds roughly 90 pieces of leftover Halloween chocolate. According to physics, it holds eleven, a lonely box of raisins, and one peanut butter cup that has been opened, examined, and respectfully returned.

It started innocently. On November 1st, Gary took a single mini bar for what he called quality control. On November 2nd, he took three, because the first one had tasted suspiciously delicious and he needed a larger sample size. By the second week, he was no longer eating candy. He was conducting a long-term scientific study with zero oversight and one extremely biased researcher.

To hide his crimes, Gary became a master of illusion. He shook the bowl so the remaining candy fluffed up like a freshly plumped pillow. He moved the wrappers to the bottom of the recycling bin, under a decoy layer of junk mail. He began placing the bowl on the highest shelf, explaining that it was for safety, as if the chocolate might escape and harm the children.

His most daring move was what experts call the Strategic Raisin Rotation. Every few days, he rotated the raisin box to the top of the pile, knowing that nobody in recorded history has ever reached into a candy bowl, seen raisins, and kept digging. The raisins were his security guard, his decoy, and frankly his only loyal friend.

Meanwhile, his wife remained serenely confident. She mentioned the stash at dinner. She told her sister they had plenty left for the holidays. She once said she might use some to decorate cookies, and Gary had to leave the room to stare thoughtfully at the garage for twenty minutes.

Sources close to the couch report that Gary has considered several solutions. Plan A involves buying replacement candy and dumping it in before she notices, a plan undermined by the fact that November candy is now heart-shaped and suspiciously pink. Plan B involves blaming the dog, which would work if they owned a dog. Plan C involves moving to a remote cabin and starting a new life under the name Gerald.

Relationship experts agree that honesty is the best policy, especially when the evidence is stuck to your sweater. Snack historians add that no marriage has ever been ended by a missing mini bar, though several have been tested by the last cookie.

As of press time, Gary was spotted at the grocery store holding a bag of chocolate, a bouquet of flowers, and a handwritten note reading simply: I regret nothing, but I am sorry.

The raisins remain unaccounted for. Nobody is looking.

Inspired by My wife thinks we still have 90 Halloween chocolates.