While there appears to be a lot of things our community can’t agree on, one of those things isn’t candy. And this is no small irony because if you haven’t noticed, our City Market and Walmart devote more linear feet to the sale of candy than they do to bread.

But some backstory first.

My younger sister Zelie wasted a single Andes Mint today. In fairness, this wasn’t entirely her fault. It had apparently been left outside in an Easter egg and then abandoned to time. When it was located a week later, nobody wanted to touch it and it finally ended up in the waste bin after more than a small amount of discussion and consideration by a number of people in my family.

According to Google, which claims to be an expert on these things, Andes Mints are “small, rectangular candies with three layers. The mint-green layer is sandwiched between two chocolate-flavored layers.” This is the “Creme de Menthe” flavor, one of six the company created, but the only flavor the company ever needed for it to become wildly successful.

And this brings me to the central point of what I want to say.

There are candies that should have never been invented and other candies so important they become central to generations of Americans. Andes clearly falls in the latter category, at least for anyone over the age of eight.

My personal favorite is Almond Joy, a taste I likely acquired from my mother, although for some of my younger siblings they fall into the “gross” category. Then there are all the candies, many of which my younger siblings enjoy, that any person of reason clearly knows never should have been invented in the first place. These include in no specific order:

Tootsie Rolls

Sour Patch Kids

Jolly Ranchers

Any candy with the word “gummy” in it

While this isn’t an exhaustive list of all the bad candies marketed en masse upon the US population I certainly view this as a reasonable starter list of the candies readers can all agree didn’t need to happen.

But perhaps in some way, the diversity of candy is important. Without the Tootsie Rolls of the world, how would we know how good real candy tastes? When I was younger, I thought some candies I now consider mediocre to be delicious. In a world where no one seems to agree on anything, I believe it is important to find common ground. Even if it is something as simple as candy.

Ruth Wiseman is a Woodland Park native and a dual-enrolled high school student attending Pikes Peak State College.

Hershey’s candy bars Take 5, PayDay, Almond Joy and a York Peppermint Patty are all popular, but only one is on author Ruth Wiseman’s “personal favorites” list. (SARINYAPINNGAM

via getty images)