Two stories about Starburst

Oh look, another blog post centred around food.

You must be on to me by now, so I'll admit it: food consumes 80% of my thoughts.

The rest are divided as follows:

• 10% - Television shows
• 5% - Flight MH370 (yes, I still haven't moved on)
• 5% - Amanda Bynes' mental health

FaveReds

Starburst has a new offering: FaveReds®. Well, it might not be that new, but it wasn't around when I was a child.

As the name implies, FaveReds® contains all different flavours of red. Red is clearly the best flavour in any assorted candy selection, so of course people are going to love the option to bypass yellow/orange in favour of reds and only reds.

I think FaveReds® is a fantastic idea, and a smart business move. But I have to be honest, I CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA YEARS AGO. Maybe this means that my amazing ideas just take a long time to come to fruition, and that McDonald's will eventually start serving breakfast all day.

Why wait until Halloween to consume several fun-sized packs of Starburst when you could eat a full-size pack NOW? 

'Guess the Mystery Flavour' competition

When she was 13 my sister Francie won a Starburst 'Guess the Mystery Flavour' competition. She called the number on the back of the pack and correctly selected the mystery flavour from a few different options read by an automated operator. Her name was added to a pool along with those of other mystery flavour whiz kids. It would later be drawn at random as the prize winner. 

I still remember when the package arrived. It came in a big, brown box the size of a microwave. Tearing it open and swatting away the packaging peanuts, Francie revealed the fruits of her success. The box contained:

• Several packages of Starburst
• Starburst beach towel
• Starburst sunscreen
• Starburst portable radio player (shaped exactly like a pack of Starburst, but an actual radio that you could put headphones in and everything!)

But for Francie, a selection of Starburst-themed goodies wasn't enough. She had dreams. Big dreams. And like any astute entrepreneur, she understood that success breeds success. Remaining dynamic and never resting on your laurels—that's what separates the rich from the super rich. This prize draw was only the beginning. 

So, she called up the Northshore Citizen to tip them off about her winnings. Well, that's not quite true. She convinced her twin sister Char to call the newspaper for her. 

Pretending to be Francie, Char pitched the story of "her" mystery flavour windfall to a reporter. It would be a fantastic human-interest tale to lighten up the dreary pages of the local broadsheets. The reporter jotted down some info and, much to all of our delight, arranged for a photographer to take a photo of Francie with her Starburst loot. 

To the surprise of absolutely no one who has ever called Kenmore home, Francie's big win made the front page. 

I've been trying to track down the article since the Internet was invented—to no avail. Like so many small local papers, the Northshore Citizen is now kaput. But from what I remember, the headline was something like 'Local teen scores big with Starburst win'. The photo was a close-up of Francie, hair white from Sun-In and arms full of Starburst flare, flaunting her new riches for the world to see. 

Love ya,
Margaret