There is only one redeeming feature of those little chalk-like heart candies (of which we bought way, way too many for the purposes of photographing for our latest beer label): They have sort-of custom text on them.

What’s amusing about the hearts is that the packaging presents them as pristine. The text is clear and centered, and there are variations of text there that I’ve not seen in all of the photographing I’ve done of them. In reality, the chalky treats have text that is blurry, broken, printed outside the bounds of the candy, or printed too lightly or too heavily, and is in most cases unreadable. I wonder at what point quality control became a non-issue with these candies; when they stopped caring that you could actually read them. Or perhaps the printing was always crap.

I think that we should have this same customized text feature applied to other foods. Like hamburgers. Go into McDonalds or Burger King or wherever you usually eat fast food, and order a burger. On top, the bun should have printed some random text. I’m not sure if it should be holiday-specific. It could just be marketing oriented, like McDonalds street English, “luvin it”. Maybe it should include health warnings like “fat ass” or “heart attack”. Oh yes, my utopia is quite dystopic.