I love Snickers bars. It’s my favorite chocolate candy—has been for years. I only buy three or four candy bars per year, so I always buy Snickers. I pilfer quite a few bite sized candy bars from my coworker Nancy’s office, but these are typically Hershey brand. I don’t love any of those. It’s like I’m trying to satisfy an itch, but I always fall short. But I usually snag a Krackel or Mr. Goodbar. At least I get some crunch.

Hallowe’en is when I get my variety of candy. We’re a pretty good house on the candy-giveaway-spectrum. We always get a chocolate sampler pack and usually a bunch of Smarties and Dum Dums too. Kids walk away from my house happy.

Up the street is the good house. They give out king-sized drug-store-counter versions of the most popular candy bars. When I was a kid, my mom would have made me throw those away. Anyone being that generous is obviously planning to kill someone.

Before work today I was in a bad mood. Susan wanted to do something nice for me. So she brought me the entire sampling from our chocolate sampler. Our unopened chocolate sampler. The bag I’ve told my kids repeatedly they can’t break into until Hallowe’en day. Kit Kat, Twix, Three Musketeers, Milky Way and Snickers. Five little candy bars (although the Kit Kat was way bigger than the others). I ate them in order, worst to best. I started with Twix and worked my way up to Snickers for dessert.

As I spent ninety seconds savoring this snack, I realized something. The Twix was my favorite flavor. Snickers was down near the bottom with Three Musketeers.

I don’t watch TV, and I rarely watch on-demand movies on television. Watching a movie at home is almost exclusively a grudging appeasement when my kids want “family movie night.” But I used to watch movies all the time. My favorite movie? Point Break. A deep story featuring a well thought out juxtaposition of Buddhist theory and violent action. I watched Point Break over and over. On VHS. Years ago, our VHS player died, and my library of violent action movies sat idle in our basement. Idle for five years. A period where I got out of the habit of watching violent movies. A period where I still listed Point Break as my favorite movie.

When I finally got a copy of Point Break on DVD; when I finally sat down to watch my favorite movie; it was… kind of stupid. I grew out of it. I matured. I changed. Just like my candy bar preference. Just like my favorite color. How many years did I list my favorite color was green before I realized that it wasn’t? That it hadn’t been for years?

By creating a favorite, I limit myself. Over the past five years, I’ve bought about fifteen Snickers bars. I’ve missed my opportunity for variety. I could have had a Baby Ruth. I love those—I think. I can’t remember the last time I had a Baby Ruth.

Let me practice: What’s my favorite candy bar? I like ’em all.

Happy Hallowe’en.