Morgan, my fabulous sister from Fabulous-port, was grocery shopping with me the other day when we spotted something curious at the cash register.

“Look,” I said, “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.” They appeared to be a Harry Potter product. I don’t know my Harry Potter from the hole in my butt, because I read the first one and ran back to Dahl and Tolkien as fast as my brain’s tiny legs could carry it. (Don’t email me about how great HP is. I am jus’ jelus. I do wish I could write something so commercially pleasing so I too could feather my bed with G-notes. There, I said it.)

This prompted the cashier to immediately jump in: “Oh, yeah, those are awful. We tried them here. Sardine, soap, ugh.” This sounded like a challenge to me.

I looked at the back of the box and discovered that the beans were Jelly Bellys gone culinarily, evilly, wrong: earwax, booger, vomit, and earthworm were some of the available flavors. We acquired two boxes on the principle that every flavor may not appear in every box. Plus, they were two-fer-three bucks.

Exhibit “A”: Unassuming container for pure evil.

When we arrived back at the Offices of I, Asshole, my scientific proclivities and reasoning overtook the usual urge to Open Candy and Narfle.

We prepared ourselves thusly: we got out a cutting board to lay the beans out on. My lovely assistant arranged them by color in order of the chart on the back of the box. We were dismayed (sort of) to see that no “soap”-flavored beans were extant.

Exhibit “B”: About to get our gross on.

We also got a knife out, in case there was only one bean of a particular flavor. At the outset, we surmised (correctly) that a lot of this shit was going to taste nasty, so we also had on hand some flavor-killers: tortilla chips, a so-so chardonnay, iced tea from dinner, and water.

Exhibit “C”: A dagger I see before me.

We decided to proceed through the list in alphabetical order. Here are our findings, taken from my careful field notes. Mostly, Morgan reacted and I scribbled.

Bacon: Appearance was disturbing. Bacon-colored with white flecks, which were no doubt supposed to be fat. “Tastes like Baco-bits.” “Not sweet…ugh, smoky.”

Black pepper: “Spicy, sweet.” Okay.

Booger: This was the first one I balked at. It was slime-colored with brown flecks. “Dirt, cleaning products, dust, and cedar chips/mulch.” Morgan: “That was nasty.”

Exhibit “D”: That was nasty, indeed.

Dirt: “It really tastes like soil…like sweet soil.” We later realized that it is more like “the sweet smell of potting soil when rains, but more perfumey.” It was okay.

Earthworm: “Spicy, dusty.”

Earwax: “Sweet, musky, ooo-kay.” Not at all like real earwax. I found out what real earwax tasted like when I was four and had been banished to my room for a nap, which always coincided with my grandma’s soaps. “Quiet, now, Grandma’s stories are on.”

Grape Jelly: “Dimetapp.” This took Morgan straight back to her allergenic childhood. Yuck.

Exhibit “E”: A dizzying array of wrongness.

Grass: Morgan: “Phenomenal! It’s just like grass without the mlah, mlah.” Me: “Cellulose?” “Yeah! Sweet, clovery.” I thought this was okay but my sister is all-things-grass-positive.

Rotten Egg: This was the first one we couldn’t finish. Me: “Sulfur.” Her: “Burnt things.” Me: “DEATH.”

Sardine: We spit this out very quickly also. “Rotten fish. Awful.” We both agreed that this will ruin kids for real sardines, which, good god, aren’t this bad.

Vomit: I could finish this one, by not thinking about what it was supposed to be. “Sweet and bitter.” Me: “Dorito and martini puke.” (Don’t ask.) This flavor made Morgan gag. She said, “Like the KFC and orange juice I puked up once.” This flavor made us realize we’ve eaten some bad food combinations.

Final thoughts:

I felt queasy. Morgan had a few bon mots:

“That makes me appreciate real food,” and “I feel like I’m gonna die.”

I don’t know who you are, Bertie Botts, you sick fuck, but you’re on my shitlist. I am also on my own shitlist, for being so stupid. I could see this product being useful to kids who want to impress their friend by being punk rock, because there’s very little pleasure to be had in this candy. I used to impress my friends in a punk rock way by dipping pinapple rind in catsup and then eating that.

Okay, just kidding–I didn’t have any friends.

In Other News

While we’re on the subject of Morgan, I should tell you she just turned 18. Good job Morgan! Before she went to LA, she dyed her hair pink but it was smudging everything with pink creep. So I purpled it for her. Yay, beautyshop!

Before:

After bleaching. I think she is pretending she is one of those cute college-aged Japanese tourists who visit here. They always pose like this:

During dying:

After:

She is the awesomest library page who ever shelved!