Mid-life Crisis

I discovered the other day that they have a fully chocolate-coated Hobnob. I was excited, but I was on my own at the time, so I had no one to share the good news with. Yes, these are the things I’m clinging on to in an effort to punctuate my day...

Brendan O’Connor discovers new life on Mars Sticks

Itake my pleasures where I can now. I think we would all agree that one of our many problems these days is that there is nothing to look forward to anymore. The things that punctuated our lives before — a holiday, a night out, a little road trip, are gone. And it turns out that much of what made our dull lives seem interesting was having something to look forward to. A whole week could be altered by a night out, you could endure months of tedium if there was a holiday somewhere on the horizon. So now we make do with small, dayto-day bumps: a package arriving that we know we will be sending back, some new show on Netflix that we will endure so that we have something to talk to other people about. And food. Always food.

I wish I was one of those people who could view healthy things as a treat. But I don’t enjoy anything healthy in advance, or at the time. Afterwards, I’ll admit, I enjoy the smug glow and the clear head of a run or a swim or a walk, or of eating some fruit. But right now, I’m grabbing for anything that will make the next moment feel good, and that means junk.

Do you know there is such a thing as

Mars Sticks? These are not to be confused with Mars Bars or so-called “fun size” mini Marses. Mars Sticks are basically the width and depth of the little Mars you get in a box of Celebrations, but they are long. If you think about this properly you will probably agree that a stick, in the shape of an elongated Celebration-sized Mars, is a good dimension for a Mars.

We don’t think about these things properly, but the proportions of a piece of confectionery can totally change the experience. A Mars Stick is, if you ask me, much nicer than a Mars bar or even a funsize.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’ve thought far too much about this. Reader, you have no idea.

I have Googled Mars Sticks. I discovered, to my surprise, that they’ve been around for a while. The earliest mention I can find is from 2016. I have only ever seen them in one shop, a random Centra near our house. Of course I should have bought up the whole stock of them there and then. When my wife went back to get me more, as a surprise for me, God help us all, they were all gone. “They’re very nice, aren’t they?” the guy in the shop said empathically to her.

I see they have them on SuperValu online, and, what’s more, there are Snickers Sticks and Twix Sticks also. I don’t feel I can set up an account and do an online shopping order with SuperValu just to make someone come to my house with some Mars, Snickers and Twix sticks, and I’m worried if I make a pilgrimage to the nearest SuperValu just to get them, they might not have them in that particular store.

But I know one thing. I know that I won’t be able to rest until I find out if a Twix Stick is just a regular finger of Twix, or whether it is a slightly slimmer Twix. Going off the Celebrations comparison, I think the Twix in a Celebrations is the regular width and depth and just truncated in length, which leads me to think a Twix Stick might just be a Twix.

So yes. This is where we are at. These are the things I’m clinging on to in an effort to punctuate my day. As if it wasn’t enough to have to be conducting my research into viruses and vaccines and epidemiology, I am now working towards a master’s in confectionery.

I discovered in the supermarket the other day that they have made a fully chocolate-coated Hobnob. I have to admit I was quite excited. Unfortunately, I was on my own at the time, so I had no one to share the good news with. I actually thought of ringing my wife, but given she was busy working at the time, I decided it might rub her up the wrong way.

I stopped myself from talking to a fellow shopper about this amazing development in confectionery technology and bought a packet. To be honest, I’m not 100pc sure the fully coated Hobnob works.

My studies are not limited to sweet stuff. I’m also conducting a lot of work into the area of salty and starchy. I could talk to you for a half an hour about the various brands of crisps, the differences between Hunky Dorys ridged crisps and Keogh’s ridged crisps — the upshot is I was a Hunky Dorys person but I’m thinking of moving over to Keogh’s. Ultimately, it all comes down to which one is on a deal at any one time. I live for the deals. They give me an excuse to buy all kinds of crap.

I’ve become a kind of a lager aficionado too, as if all lagers aren’t more or less the same. I’m currently on the Moosehead, a tinned Canadian variety, but I’m hatching a plan to get my hands on some Ichnusa, a hard-to-find Italian beer that goes down very easily.

I tend to judge beer by the effect on the gut. Wicklow Wolf, for example, do a nice gluten-free lager called Arcadia. And yes, I’m aware of the ridiculousness of acting as if my body is a temple by drinking gluten-free lager when I’m stuffing myself with all kinds of other crap and bread all day.

This is my life now. This is what happens people when there is nothing else to look forward to. I know how much a Catch bar is in Dunnes and I know how much they are in Tesco.