1. FUN-SIZE CHOCOLATE BARS

Easy. Mini chocolate bars are like the gold nuggets of candy trading. Valuable, substantial, and vaguely nugget shaped, if you have four of these puppies, you basically have a whole REAL-sized candy bar. Plus, you never really get knock-off brand chocolate. No one’s giving out “Murs” oh “Oh Harry!” bars. These things cost ACTUAL MONEY to buy, and with nuts, caramel, nougat, or whatever inside them, it’s almost like you’re getting a bunch of treats in one.

2. BRAND NAME CANDY

Mini packages of Nerds, Sweet Tarts, Nibs, Starburst, Skittles… these come in a close second behind Fun-Size Chocolate Bars. These are the treats you asked your parents to buy you at the store, just smaller. You’d actively seek these things out, and now suddenly you have them for free and you can take a whole bunch of them to school in your lunch.

3. CHIPS

Cheezies fall under this category, too. Sure, the bags are mostly full of air, and they’re not quite as big as the one’s you’d get out of a vending machine… but they’re still chips. They take several bites to consume and they’re a nice salty contrast when you’re suffering from Halloween sugar overload.

4. TOOTSIE ROLLS/TOOTSIE POPS

Ahhh, almost chocolate, but… not. What exactly is ‘tootsie’? According to Wikipedia, it’s supposed to be chocolate flavoured but you and I both know that shit doesn’t taste anything like chocolate. It tastes like Tootsie Roll. Tootsie POPS are clearly superior to the simple “roll” configuration, but somewhere in between you find the elusive “flavoured rolls” which come in cherry, orange, grape, vanilla (!) and more. Still a solid (if sometimes annoyingly chewy) treat.

5. CANS OF POP

Cans of pop land squarely in the middle of this list because they have some VERY clear and fairly evenly weighted pros and cons.
PROS: Full size ANYTHING is exciting on Halloween; you can drink this while you’re trick or treating to stay hydrated.
CONS: They’re heavy, and your shoulder is gonna hurt after carrying around a bunch of pop cans in a pillowcase for hours; they’ll crush your chips.

6. ROCKETS

If it weren’t Halloween and you could get these things whenever you wanted, you never would, because they’re boring. But it IS Halloween and they’re inoffensive and ubiquitous and it’s kind of fun to pretend they’re cool pills when you eat them with your friends.

7. GUM

“Gum” is a misleadingly simple heading. None of the options are that great, but within this crappy category, there is a defined Gum Hierarchy:

1. BAZOOKA JOE. Rarer than the rest, and the comics are better than Dubble Bubble
2. DUBBLE BUBBLE. Pud Funnies are worse than Ziggy. AND worse than Bazooka Joe. Are they even jokes?
3. GUMBALLS. Why bother? Not worth the effort. Chewing a gumball is like hearing the first note of a song and then having to listen to white noise for the next three and a half minutes.

8. HALLOWEEN KISSES

AKA those “gross chewy molasses things in the yellow and orange wrapper that no one wants and everyone thinks MIGHT have poison in them and also when did you buy this? 1966?” (Note: I kind of like these. I’m the only one.)

9. LOLLIPOPS

A quick, easy way to tell the neighbourhood children “I AM CHEAP.”

10. FRUIT

Not since Helen of Troy has the face of a beautiful woman caused so much misery. Sorry Sun-Maid Raisins lady, NO. (That ‘NO’ also applies to apples. Or clementines. Or bananas. Etc.) Halloween isn’t the time to get preachy, it’s the one time of year when you’re ALLOWED to stuff your face full of candy without shame. If you’re giving out fruit you might as well just give out eggs, because that’s what they’re going to be throwing at your house anyway.

DISHONOURABLE MENTION: TOOTHBRUSH

What are you, a psychopath?