Bloopers

I saw a flock of robins today. A whole FLOCK. I’ve seen more than one robin at a time before, but always scattered, as if they weren’t TOGETHER-together and instead just happened to be occupying the same yard. I don’t think of them as flockers. I hope this means we are having an EXTRA GOOD spring.

(I looked it up, and apparently they DO flock, but mostly at night—they split up during the day. Also, Robin’s Egg Blue is a very pretty color.)

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I remember at some point mentioning that my favorite piece in the Russell Stover assortment box is the Roman Nougat, and then I got all excited because I found out I could order a WHOLE BOX of JUST Roman Nougats online, but then they were out of stock. Anyway, they finally came back into stock, so I ordered a whole box of dark and a whole box of milk (I HAD to, to get free shipping, and also I couldn’t decide which ones I preferred). (And incidentally, it turns out that the See’s Rum Nougats have kind of spoiled the Roman Nougats for me, but let’s not let that ruin the story.)

WELL. Before I hit “place order now,” I noticed an OUTLET section, and in the outlet section was a box of “Bloopers”: a 3-pound box (it says “48 ounce,” but there is a cross-wiring in my brain that ALWAYS makes me think 48 ounces is 4 pounds) (oh, I’ll bet it’s because 48 inches is 4 feet) (anyway, 3-pound box is clearer) (well, unless you usually think in terms of kilograms, in which case it’s like one and a third kilograms) of chocolates that look funny but taste fine, in a random assortment based on what got picked off the line by Quality Control that day.

I was immensely curious about this. I wanted to know HOW badly malformed they were, and also I was intrigued by the idea of the GAMBLE: it could be 2.5 pounds of molasses chews (least favorite) and .4 pounds of truffles (second least favorite) and .1 pounds of vanilla creams (love)! OH WHAT WOULD IT BE? Also, I liked the thought of the workers picking them off the line, pick pick pick, like in videos of factories, gloved hands working fast, hair in white paper caps, serious focused expressions. So I ordered a box.

It was with high anticipation I awaited the arrival. Finally the day came.

Thanks for the cow theme, there.

Here it is!

Inside view

As you can see, Bloopers are just tossed into the box all willy-nilly, so they look scruffed-up from chocolate-on-chocolate action. The defects vary: a few were lightly squashed, but mostly it seems to be either misshapenness (supposed to be round, but had a lumpy part; supposed to be rounded oblong, but too low and rounded), or filling peeking out (convenient for picky picking!).

It appears from the way I arranged the photos that I opened the box of Bloopers right away, but in fact I waited more than a week. I was NERVOUS. (Also, I had some clearance Valentine’s Day candy I was still working my way through, which is how I unfortunately found out the Roman Nougats were now just Fine.)

And…I lucked out. It appears that the ones with a cream filling are most likely to be misshapen or have little bits oozing out of them, or maybe they were just working on creams that day, because almost the whole box is creams, and creams are my favorites. I’ve had about ten that are either maple-walnut or walnut creams and it looks like it’s over a pound of just those, so I can picture someone else being TOTALLY DISMAYED (ack, nuts! ack, maple! ack, creams!) but I love those ones so I could hardly be happier.

I’ve also had several caramels, and one lemon cream, and one vanilla cream, and I see several that are Roman Nougats, and I gave Paul a coconut (I like coconut but he loves them) and a truffle. I ALSO saw one that was definitely a molasses chew (filling peeping out), and I wish they looked different on the outside than the Roman Nougats because I just know I’m going to bite into one by accident. (In some assortments the molasses chews have white stripes, and in some they don’t. In this box, they don’t—and two of the maple walnuts DID. What the? I wonder if sometimes they forget to turn on/off the striping machine? I think I need to go work in their factory to find out the answers to these questions.)

There are no nut ones. I mean, there’s the walnut creams and maple-walnut creams, but there aren’t any nut clusters. It might be that they weren’t working on them that day, or it might be that those are harder to get wrong because they are lumpy by nature.

35 thoughts on “Bloopers

  1. Nowheymama

    One of my college friends is the son of a Russell Stover’s employee. His dad would periodically send him huge boxes of bloopers candy that he would share with all of us. Good times.

    Reply
  2. Snoopyfan

    When I go to the Jelly Belly factory I always get a big bag of Belly Flops. Same concept as Bloopers except the Jelly Bellys are usually just misshapen but the correct color.

    Reply
  3. Today Wendy

    I once bought a box of Laura Secord “oops we messed these ones up”. Turns out they were all cream fillings where they’d forgotten to add the flavouring to the cream…so they just tasted a bit milky and really really sweet. But it sounds like you hit the jackpot on this one!

    I’m really having to fight the temptation to order some of these chocolates you keep posting about. They look and sound so delicious. And if I had a box I would just inhale all of them and get really horribly sick :( I wish there was some sort of chocolate delivery system that would send me one chocolate every couple of days…

    Reply
  4. Alice

    *i will not click on the bloopers link i will not click on the bloopers link i will not click on the bloopers link aaaaaiiiiieeeee*

    Reply
  5. jean

    I worked at a small candy factory (think Lucy and Ethel – it truly was just like that!) and we had seconds all the time. Either the draping process missed a corner on a caramel, or the marking of the creams went awry (it was all done by hand!). Anyway, once every few days, we ‘patched’ up the hard centers and sorted out the mismarked creams and put them into a seconds bin in the display case. They were 1/2 price. Never any nuts – they were hand dropped.
    Anyway, there was a very wealthy lady in town – famous last name that was very recognizable – who would come in and want us to put together boxes of seconds for her to send to her friends at the holidays. Seconds were sold in a box, but not cupped or polished (yes, we polished chocolates!). She also wanted us to pick out just certain ones. Zona was her name, but we knew her as PAIN IN THE ASS. For the luv of gawd, she could have bought the damn store with the change in her pocket and she made our lives miserable for a $7 pound of candy. GAH!

    Reply
  6. Sarah

    Oh good lord. I read this as an OPEN BOX OF CANDY sits on my desk. I should NOT know about this fact of blooper chocolates. I am never going to overcome my sugar addiction at this rate and will very shortly be diabetic. Gah. I’m going to go away now and forget I ever saw this link…
    HAHA FAIL!

    Reply
  7. Maggie

    When my dad was a kid, my grandmother worked in a chocolate candy factory and she used to bring home tons of seconds. My dad is now 75 and has a huge sweet tooth but never goes for chocolates, totally burned out on them as a kid. Not sure that would ever happen to me…

    Reply
  8. Erin

    Robins are now one of the most abundant native birds in north America. You can plot the Christmas bird count data for any species and any years since the counts began. Isn’t that awesome?

    Reply
  9. Magic27

    I love that this post comes just after “why we get fat”! Why? Well, because this is the perfect example of why I’m now muffin-topping after years of stick-insect-ness… All this talk of yummy sounding chocolates is giving me the munchies. Thank God this company doesn’t exist here in France! I’d be enormous by now if it did. I think you’re very restrained in your chocolate consumption if you had this box for a week before you opened it…
    And hmmmmm, yum, lemon creams…

    Reply
  10. Swistle

    All of you who get a Blooper box, you MUST report on what you got! I’m dying to know! I’ve been feeling like ordering ANOTHER Blooper box to see what THAT roll of the dice would bring!

    Reply
  11. Christy

    So funny that you waited a week before you opened your bloopers. I sometimes do the same, when I’ve ordered something online. I get nervous that I’ll be disappointed :)

    Reply
  12. Therese

    I am very hesitant when it comes to those large boxes of assorted chocolates because like Forest Gump’s mama says, “you never know what your’re going to get.” However, after all of your recent and quite in-depth posts on them, I could be swayed. I didn’t even realize you could request boxes of just certain kinds. You’ve also made me feel a bit braver about trying certain types based on your photos and descriptions. I really appreciate the “sacrifice” in candy eating that you’ve made to better inform your blog readers! Also, on another note, I worked in an office once where the boss would choose selections out of the assorted chocolate boxes and either poke, break, bite… to see what they were and PUT THEM BACK if she didn’t like it! I am not even making this up, it was disgusting and probably another reason I have a phobia of boxes of assorted chocolates. This boss was also very formal and classy and professional, so the fact that she did this was just even weirder. It was completely unexpected behavior on her part.

    Reply
  13. Beth

    Swistle – have you read the book Candy Freak by Steve Almond (yes, that’s his name)? He visits all sorts of chocolate factories and reports on the the processes and people behind his favourite chocolate bars and candies. He is passionate about his subject so it makes good reading.

    I’m pretty sure you’d like this book.

    On another note – I’m always struck by how you manage to hit just the right tone on almost all your posts. You handle potentially difficult or boring or controversial topics with grace and humour. You have a gift. And thanks for posting as frequently as you do….I’m always glad to see a new post from you and you don’t leave us all waiting for days on end!

    Cheers!

    Reply
  14. Marie Green

    Had to comment on the robins before I read the rest of the post: I’ve seen a whole flock of male-only robins before (taking over our crab apple tree for an afternoon; gone by morning). I remember googling then and learning that the males come back first, find a spot and build a nest. Then when the females come, they insist on moving to a new spot AND rip apart and build a NEW nest.

    Of course, this was several years ago. Later this afternoon, I’ll have to do some googling to see if what I remember finding last time is still true…

    Reply
  15. Swistle

    Mama Bub- Ooo, what a good idea!

    Beth- I’ll check that out! It sounds right up my alley! And thank you for all those nice things you said!

    Reply
  16. Christina

    Bloopers also makes me picture your described factory workers. AND I love Lucy when she was trying to keep up w/ the line and shoving them down her shirt/in her mouth, etc.

    Reply
  17. Doing my best

    Oh, that looks (and sounds) SO YUMMY! If my resolve crumbles in the face of the realities of living with 5 children, and I procure a couple more pounds of Butterscotch Squares, I will be sure to ask if they have “bloopers” at See’s Candy =).

    Reply
  18. Nik-Nak

    OHHH ACK the math in that fourth and fifth paragraph!!
    Oh, what’s that you say? That technically wasn’t math, just a whole bunch of numbers? It game me a headache regardless.

    Also, now craving chocolate. You MUST stop doing this to me ha!

    Reply
  19. Kelsey

    See I’m so particular about chocolate that the Blooper thing would almost certainly be a bust for me (Plus, what if we got peanut butter?!) But thinking about chocolate reminds me that our local chocolate company makes chocolate covered potato chips and I wonder what the logistics would be of sending you a box of those to try???

    Reply
  20. Doing my best

    For the record, my resolve did not crumble, but, the last time I went to See’s, I accidentally got my daughter the wrong thing, and we had already waited in line for 20 minutes and I was NOT ABOUT TO GO BACK and wait ANOTHER 20, so I had to go back today to fix my mistake =). The lady working there said she doesn’t know what See’s does with their imperfect chocolates and wondered if they were in the big boxes the employees could buy, so it looks like no “bloopers” from See’s. Ahem, my resolve did crumble upon inhaling when we walked in the store, but I only bought ONE pound of butterscotch squares this time instead of the mumble mumble I bought last time!

    Reply
  21. misguided mommy

    dooooooooood. why am i just learning about this. i can’t believe all along there has been “bloopers” chocolate. i asked a friend who said, “duh, sees does it too, and a bunch of others”

    MUST INVESTIGATE NOW

    Reply
  22. Anonymous

    I have a Russell stovers factory in town and there is a retail store attached. The back room is just a huge room of bloopers. I got pecan delights. I don’t notice anything wrong with them, but they are in a university of Georgia bulldogs wrapper…. 5.99 a lbs is awesome so I’m happy with my purchase

    Reply

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