When I was a kid, I stole candy from the bins at Alpha Beta. Those bins were so low, even a child with more scruples than I would have been tempted.
These candies were the worst of the worst. Granted, there were no circus peanuts among the bins. There were, however, sickly sweet butterscotch candy, sugar-dusted fake oranges and limes that hurt your teeth when you bit into them and chocolate-covered malt balls.
Also present was hard candy, wrapped in cellophane and looking like jewels but tasting just a little past decent. Later, most of those candies would live out their retirement in some grandmother’s coffee table candy dish, softening and then clinging to their dish mates in a state of benign ossification.
Brach’s selection also included these fake tootsie rolls, some of which were pink and bore a flavor I can only describe as pink.
But it was candy, even it was crap candy. Looking back, my grocery store banditry signaled an addictive personality. Who else misses Alpha Beta?
—Sarah Torribio
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