I’ve found that coconut is a very polarizing food. People either love it or hate it. There’s simply no middle ground. If you don’t believe me just go out and buy a couple bags of fun-sized candy bars. The kind you’d give out at Halloween. Get a variety of different types and get good ones like: Butterfinger, Twix, Snickers, Milky Way, Three Musketeers, Kit Kat, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Mr. Goodbar, and Nestle Crunch. Don’t cheap out and get crappy Payday, Zagnut, and Krackle. Nobody likes them and Krackle is really just a Nestle Crunch wannabe anyway. Dump these all into a candy dish or bowl. Make sure and sprinkle a few Almond Joy and Mounds in there. Then set them out in front of your friends and watch what happens. You’ll find out first-hand where coconut falls in the candy bar hierarchy.
The first ones to go are always Twix and peanut butter cups. Chicks dig Twix because it’s got caramel and chocolate together in the same candy bar. That’s akin to a bottle of wine and a massage for a woman. Women will also eat the hell out of peanut butter cups. I think peanut butter cups taste rich and sumptuous to women so they always have a dark appeal. Peanut butter cups make women feel decadent. Neither the Twix nor the peanut butter cups will go all at once however. Women don’t like to admit to themselves that they love them. Instead, they’ll just take one candy bar at a time, cherry picking them out of the bowl like an osprey catching fish in a mountain lake. If you heard a woman’s thought voice it would sound something like, “Candy dish fly by number one, take a Twix… Fly by number two, on the way back from the bathroom, take a peanut butter cup.” Slowly but surely the Twix and peanut butter cup supply in your dish will die the death of a thousand cuts.
Next to go will usually be the Kit Kat and Snickers. Dudes will crush themselves some Kit Kat and Snickers. Men like things that are hearty. Snickers has nuts and guys fool themselves into thinking eating a couple will give them energy at the gym. Snickers can sure give you a reason to need to go to the gym, but despite what the commercials say, no olympic athlete honed their body on a diet of Snickers. But that won’t stop guys from eating them. And men won’t eat candy bars like a woman. Guys will walk up to the bowl and dig around until they have at least twelve of the same type in their hands then walk away and gnaw through them like a wolf on a fresh carcass. In two minutes you’ll end up with just a pile of wrappers and a smile. Guys won’t clean the wrappers up for a while either. They’ll just leave them all piled up on the table. Trophies exemplifying their hard work and shame.
As time passes, so will the rest of the candy bars in the bowl. In descending order of disappearance (after the Twix, peanut butter cups, Kit Kat, and Snickers): Butter Finger, Mr. Goodbar, Nestle’s Crunch, Milky Way, and Three Musketeers. The Almond Joy and Mounds will sit there long enough to collect visible dust. Most people just seem to hate coconut. Your bowl of dusty Almond Joy and Mounds will be the proof. Eventually though, there will be that one guy who comes along who fucking loves coconut. He’ll snatch those last few bars up like they’re manna from heaven. But he’s a unicorn. Most people just don’t like coconut.
Another test to prove the world’s loathsome attitude toward coconut is to toss a few Almond Joy into a grade schooler’s Halloween bag and wait for the look on their face. Their instant response will be one of disdain. You might as well have given them an apple or a home made bran muffin. Kids hate coconut.
And what is a coconut anyway? Is it a fruit? Nut? Seed? Hard to say. Wikipedia says it can be classified as any of those three. Coconut is like Carrot Top. Is he a comedian? Actor? Bodybuilder? Freak? All of the above? None of the above? Like Carrot Top, coconut only has a special place in the hearts of a select few. Coconut: you either love it or hate it.
