The Candy Store

Sometime during our Saturday safari, Sarah led us onto a NYC bus.

Bus folks in NYC are a lot like subway folks. The only difference, evidently, is that bus folks are not afraid to actually SEE all the traffic mayhem around them as they hold on for dear life from stop to stop.

Truthfully, riding that bus made this old Georgia boy travel WAY back in time (in his mind) to the late sixties and early seventies. Riding a City-of-Atlanta school bus for the first few years of high school back then was THE greatest training I could have had for riding an NYC bus. Because of it, I knew exactly how to brace with the feet and legs, change hands on the pole at the right time, and sway with the rocking back and forth of this monstrous MPV.

Brought back lots of really good memories!

When we finally got off the bus, we walked hurriedly right through the front doors of a place that only one word can describe - Heaven!

Well, not LITERALLY "heaven."

But, if you're seven years old (and yes, I have never aged beyond that point in my heart and mind) and you're visiting NYC and someone takes you to - Dylan's Candy Bar - "H-E-A-V-E-N" is precisely where you would think you had landed!

Dylan's Candy Bar, on the corner of 60th Street & Third Avenue, is a multi-story, 15,000 square foot, candy and dessert wonderland. It is dubbed as, "The World's Largest Candy Store." And, brother, it IS!

Inspired by the movie, "Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory," Dylan's Candy Bar is owned by Dylan Lauren, daughter to the clothing and perfume magnate, Ralph Lauren (a relationship and business partnership that gives new meaning to the term, "Sugar Daddy").

Dylan's Candy Bar carries over 5,000 different kinds of candy. There are sections in the store where one can even buy apparel that glorifies candy. There is a section that displays all the favorite candies of Hollywood Stars that have visited Dylan's. They even have pieces of all types of candy encased in the clear, plastic staircase that leads from the street floor to the basement of this sugary paradise.

However, from the first moment you walk into Dylan's, you immediately sense that this is not a place of great calm and peace - like the REAL heaven will be. Rather, it is more closely resembles something akin to a war zone.

Each floor is focused around a stationary lazy-susan type counter with multiple layers of bins containing every variety of candy known to man. You take a clear bag, step up to this monstrosity, and as you make your way around it, you fill your clear bag with as much and as many varieties of "pogey bait" as it will hold ("pogey bait" is the old Marine Corps term for candy - Google the term to find out why the Marines of yester-year called it that).

When you finally get to the register at Dylan's - IF you get to the register at Dylan's, they weigh your candy bag and charge you at a rate of $12.99 per pound. As you might guess, it does not take much to quickly run up a $25.00 sugar tab.

The only dangers at Dylan's, other than the resultant dental cavities and/or grossly elevated blood sugar levels, are the kids and their mothers.

I have seen suckling pigs fight each other for a teat as they nurse at their mother's belly. I have seen a bunch of hungry football players vie for a table full of pizzas at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes gathering. And, I have seen fish almost rip each other to pieces over food thrown to them by tourists standing on a bridge over a lake inlet. But, I have NEVER seen the kind of holocaust that goes on at the candy carousel at Dylan's.

Pushing, shoving, shouting, nudging, hitting, threatening, snatching, rudeness, cutting in line, and a plethora of other acts of war are all displayed by those who fight the good fight at Dylan's. There is no line. There is a mob. There is no courtesy. There is only survival of the fittest.

But, if you do come away from the carousel with a bag full of assorted Dylan's candies, part of your reward is to then be ogled by every New Yorker you pass on the way out of Dylan's, and for the rest of the time you have the bag of goodies in your possession. You see, the clear bag is designed to show off your cache of sweet stuff. It is intended to entice any and all who see it to, themselves, make their way to 60th and 3rd for their own try at candy nirvana.

I don't exactly remember where we went or what we did after Dylan's. But, I do remember being leered at by passers-by as I gleefully munched on the Chocolate Covered Raisins, Chocolate Covered Peanuts, Yogurt Covered Almonds, Jujy-Fruits, M&M's, Twizzlers, Chicklets, and all the other 57 varieties of pogey bait I had so gallantly fought for back at Dylan's.

If you go to NYC and visit Dylan's, be sure to take with you plenty of bottles of insulin and a syringe. Diabetes or not, you'll likely need these things just to help your body survive the sugar tsunami that will certainly wash over it. And, to my knowledge, there is no infirmary at or nearby Dylan's where one can pass out and sleep off the sugar coma that inevitably ensues.

So, have an escape plan. Know where you can retreat from this sugar mecca. Find a quiet corner. When safely there, you will have the peace of knowing that no one can rob you of the joy of draining that bulging bag of candy, and no one can nag you about not needing all that sugar. You see, they won't be able to nag you. Likely, they will have already drained their bag, and will be passed out on the floor a full fifteen minutes before you join them.

That's Dylan's Candy Bar - The World's Largest Candy Store - 60th and 3rd - Manhattan - NY, NY.

"Ya'll," er uh, "Youse Guys, Come!"