Hell Holds No Surprises For Me Anymore...

God help us all.

(This is a copypasta of the infamous Toronto Airport incident in April 2013. Don't take any of this shit seriously. Or do.)

This is a cautionary tale and - unlike most of the other reviews on this product - this is a true story and its authenticity can be qualified by a small news item that appeared in the Toronto Star's local news section during the month of April in 2013, much to my chagrin.

I would consider myself a prudent man. Not given to bouts of outspokenness or craving attention, and certainly not one to rock the boat. On any given day I can be found reading a crime novel on a park bench in the middle of the city, soaking in the opulence of nature while nibbling on my tuna fish sandwiches and fending off the voracious gulls and squirrels that threaten to spoil my repose. This is me. Law-abiding and introspective. Which is why it came as a shock to me to find myself incarcerated because of the Devil's Confectionery, Satan's Sweetmeat, Lucifer's Lozenges - the horror that is known as 'Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears".

I'll set the scene: It was late winter / early spring in Toronto and the city had just been digging itself out from a late season snow-storm. I was heading to Pearson International Airport for a redeye flight to Amsterdam in order to give the Dutch arm of our company some training on the new software that had been installed (I'm deliberately being vague to prevent my place of work from being linked in any way to the incident that occurred). I had just finished packing, checked the time and found I was running late, my flight was at 7:10 PM and it was now almost 5:00 PM. Cursing softly, I ran out to the car and threw my bags in the trunk, hitting the gas a little harder than usual in my haste to make it to the Long Term Parking Lot as soon as possible. Luckily traffic was light on the 401 and I made it to the airport in record time, but knew that my chances of making the flight were still at risk if I didn't use my time wisely.

I hadn't eaten since lunch, and I was feeling a bit hungry, my stomach rumbling loudly in protestation, which caused me to look around at the other travellers rushing past me in the busy terminal, mortified that my bodily noises might be heard by others. I briskly checked my watch and decided that I had enough time to grab a quick snack before going through the baggage check and security, and would get something more substantial once I was checked through security. I spotted a vending machine nestled in a relatively low-traffic corner of the terminal and rushed over, already pulling out my credit-card and mentally assessing what I had a craving for so as to save time interacting with the machine. My eyes scanned the colourful array of confection quickly, coming to rest on a tantalizing, rainbow-coloured bag of gummy bears with the simple white and red logo "Haribo" emblazoned across the bag in what appeared to be a slightly tweaked Helvetica Rounded font.

Now I'd to pause here in the story for a moment to underscore the importance of making proper choices. I was hungry. When you're hungry, you should eat FOOD. FOOD is defined as "a nutritious substance that people consume to maintain life", this is what food is. These days, the definition of the word 'food' has been bastardized and the meaning has been broadened to include veritably any material that can be digested, or rather, chewed and swallowed without causing death or severe illness. "Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears" are NOT food. They aren't even from this planet. I imagine their origins being conceived in a boardroom in hell by a top team of Creative Pain Administers, with senior level Demons rubbing their hands together in ghoulish delight as Hell's Chief Chemist slowly lifts the veil on their new creation.

The point here being, I made a very, very, very poor choice. I pushed the button and the vending machine ejected the brightly coloured bag into my awaiting hands. I had always liked gummy bears - they were bright but rather innocuous, they weren't overly sweet so as to become cloying and - of course - each candy came in the visage of a rather happy, docile bear reminiscent of the picture one's mind's eye holds of all anthropomorphic bears from Yogi to Winnie.