Just Look At The Size Of These Balls

Gumballs, I mean.  Note the dime I cleverly placed for my readers to use as a comparison point.  Don't ever say that I'm not thoughtful.

Ralph Lauren has a daughter named Dylan.  Dylan has remarkable business acumen because several years ago she opened a store that quickly earned its reputation as a new landmark in a city of landmarks.  Amazingly, all she did was open a candy store.  Dylan's Candy Bar {+} sells sugar in all forms: neon green, caramelized, fluffy, crystallized, powdered, liquid - you name it, that store has it on a shelf somewhere.  This joint is a two-story Willy Wonka dream come true that tourists absolutely adore.  And it's right here on the Upper East Side conveniently situated less than a block away from the famous Serendipity joint {+} - the one that was featured in the Kate Beckinsale / John Cusack flick of the same name, the one that was shut down for rat droppings a week after launching a sundae priced at a thousand something dollars.  Oops.  (They've since been cleared and have re-opened.)

Y'all know how I feel about tourists: cute and harmless and wonderful for the local economy, but geez, they're a little bit like, IN OUR WAY ALL THE TIME.  Their naivete is the main reason why I steer clear of touristy spots in this city like bigots did Asian-Americans when the SARS scare transpired a while back.

If you ever visit this city, please, when you surface to street level from any subway stop, do not stop in your tracks at the top step like a moron and fumble with your guidebook or turn to your spouse to chitchat.  Same goes for when you head underground and hit the bottom step.  Keep moving the legs forward away from the stairwell.  Chances are, you're blocking people behind you or people in front of you and it's really quite dangerous because you do not want to be caught off balance at the top of those cement stairs.  New Yorkers will shove.

Despite my intolerance for gauche tourists, I made a special trip to Dylan's Candy Bar tonight.  There's a little man in my life turning seven later this month and his mama clued me in that he has a particular affinity for ring pops and gumballs.  Having a mighty hard time finding ring pops (weird, right?), I bravely made a pit stop at Dylan's on my way home tonight.  As suspected, the place was overflowing with slow tourists and they all stopped dead in their tracks after reaching the bottom or top step of the staircase (no, I did not shove anyone), but let me tell you, when my eyes fell upon these monstrous gumballs, I knew it was worth the trip.  It sort of made up for the fact that they only had two flavors of ring pops on the floor.  I picked one each of every color they had in the huge gumballs.  The smaller yellow ones have cute smiley faces on them.  They look puny, but they're actually the standard gumball size.  I'm hoping he doesn't break his little jaw biting into these treats.  Eh.  I'm rotting his teeth anyway with all this candy.  What's a cracked tooth to a decaying one anyway?