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We stood in the sweets aisle of the big Tesco in Headford. We were another 20 minutes drive from Cong and in desperate need of some food. We had a pulley basket filled with all the essential items for a few days’ stay — a loaf of John Mccambridge Irish soda bread, a packet of Clonakilty sausages, porridge for B, a pint of milk, the basic fruits and veg.
The only snacks B enjoys are white chocolate and shortbread. He’s not fussed about crisps or any other confectionary. We grabbed one bar of Cadbury white chocolate — a rarity in the UK — and a bar of white Lindor. I couldn’t decide what I wanted. I walked up and down the aisle — perhaps a packet of Tayto’s? I wanted something not too sweet, but not too salty. Sour, perhaps. I go down to the very end of the aisle, where the smaller bags of sweets are stuffed without order into the shelves, the clear result of a couldn’t-be-bothered Tesco worker. So many to choose from.
And then I saw it. The familiar white bag with the pinched lips of an animated worm on it. Sour Squirms.
I grab a bag with a tight fist like a child making their final decision after Mom says to pick “just one.” We checkout and haul the bags of shopping back to the car. B heads to the driver side while I search for my pack of Squirms. They’re a ‘for the journey’ type of sweet, not to be eaten except for when we’re in the car.
As Chief Passenger, I have only a handful of tasks to complete during the drive: navigation, music selection — exclusively Taylor Swift and, for some reason, Nickelback — and snack delivery. Car sweets are handled between long stretches of drives, through winding country roads when the music is turned down and we’re feeling nibbly. The first bite is always the most sour, the puckering of lips and squinting of eyes, the tight feeling you get in your jaw when the citric acid bites down on your taste buds. And then, the sweetness of the jelly. Sour squirms are like a double sided pen, there are two flavours to every worm — Lime and Blackcurrant or Orange and Raspberry. I secretly give B the Lime one’s, I’m not a huge fan.
There’s nothing all that extraordinary about Sour Squirms other than that it feels a bit nostalgic. They were one of my first choices for car sweets as a kid. When my family road tripped through Yellowstone nearly 13 years ago, we ate an obscene amount of Jack Link’s biltong. If it’s a drive through Ireland, a mixture of Werther’s Originals, Polo Original Mints, Fox’s Glacier Fruits and Wine Gums. My father would have one hand on the wheel, the other would hover in the air as my mother gave him a sweet or two. He’d keep his eye on the road as he toss his head back to hoover up whatever she gave him. I’d lean between the seats, sticking my hand through for my share. Sometimes the role of Chief Sweet Distributor would be relegated to me if my mother wanted to sleep. If I snuck in a sweet for myself, my father would give me a look in the rearview mirror and sneak his hand back.
Not every sweet is a car sweet, there are certain levels of criteria that need to be met: easy to eat, not messy, not too filling. Chocolates, while delicious, are a melting mess and if you eat too many at once, rather sickening. They are best served as a post-dinner treat, when you’re all watching the telly and you pass the Quality Street tin around. Or in my family’s case, left on the kitchen counter, pecked at throughout the day until, by bedtime, only the crap ones are left (I argue the fudge, strawberry delight and orange creme should be banned).
I’m not road tripping as often now I'm an adult, so my car sweet experiences are much less frequent. Sometimes when I’m on my way home and I stop at a garage for some petrol, I still browse the sweet sections just in case something catches my eye. A bag of percy pigs or a roll of Rowntree fruit pastilles. On a long drive home, I onced devoured a packet of Hula Hoops, nearly choking in the process, and on another, ripped a bag of Wine Gums open, sending them flying everywhere. It took a few weeks to find them all. Although my mother isn’t a huge snacker, she’ll sometimes go through a phase where she’ll buy a load of new things to try. Just last week she bought a packet of Walkers Max ‘pepperoni feast’ flavoured crisps. She drove, I fed her pieces, my fingers tinged orange from the salty crisp coating.
I don’t know what the excitement is about car sweets. They operate as a different kind of snack, the sort that is distinctly tied to a memory — driving to the country cabin, a trip to the beach or a family day out hiking. But they’re also a gift for sharing — something to bond over when you run out of things to talk about. They’re neutral ground.
At the end of our trip, on our drive back to Dublin from Cong, we stopped in at a petrol station. I ran in and grabbed a bag of Sour Squirms, the journey was over but we still had a flight to catch, operated by Ryanair no less. Our flight could very easily be cancelled, and if so, I’ll have the Sour Squirms to keep me company.