We are nuts about lists. We all look at them. If you want something you’ve written to be read, put it in the form of a list.

So, I’m going to take a stab at coming up with a daily list. Don’t know how long it will last, but here’s a start.

The Top Ten American Candies:

10. Necco Wafers. Are these even sold anymore? I can’t remember the last time I saw them. I can say, with assurance, that Neccos were a staple of my childhood movie-going experience. If you think about it, it’s rather like eating artificially colored chalk. Or maybe Tums. But once you got going … I especially liked the faux chocolate brown ones and the green ones.

9. Butterfinger. That orange stuff in the middle is weird. You know, the flaky insides, under the chocolate? But once you get to chewing it, and it turns sweet and gummy, it’s tasty.

8. Crunch. Puffed rice and chocolate. Who knew?

7. Kit-Kat. Wafer cookies and chocolate. Who knew?

6. Skittles. Perhaps the ultimate in binge-inducing candy experiences. Who among us hasn’t picked up five … and ended up eating 50? 100? And watch out for the impending sugar rush. And rotting teeth.

5. Hershey’s Kisses. It’s like eating a Hershey bar, in the sense that it’s Just Plain Milk Chocolate. But the foil wrapping and small portions eliminate the melting problem you can have with a full-size bar and also allow you to embrace the illusion that 15-20 Kisses comprises fewer calories than a Hershey bar. Yeah, I’m voting for packaging here.
4. Lemon Heads. The third (and last) non-chocolate entry here. And perhaps the least healthy of all these guilty pleasures. It’s a gummy, spherical sour exterior over a fairly hard sugar interior. So you get pucker-up sour at first, but then it’s all sweet inside. Ahh. These also can induce binge-eating, and it’s a dangerous binge because the acid in the sour exterior can eat a hole in the roof of your mouth, and the chewy interior can suck a filling right out of a molar.

3. Baby Ruth. I got these in my school lunches much of my days in elementary school, and they invariably were the highlight of the experience. Chocolate, caramel and peanuts … you just can’t go wrong there. And the idea that the candy was named after Babe Ruth … makes it better.

2. Snickers. The candy I eat most often. Sometimes for breakfast. A great, great candy, with the chocolate covering a chewy nougat of caramel and peanuts. There is a “heft” to a standard-size Snickers that does, in fact, make it feel like a meal. I prefer the “fun” size, however, and frozen. Yes, frozen. Very nice. But I will break a tooth on one of these some day. And not really regret it.

1. M&Ms. The best. The King of Kandy. Simple, yet elegant: A hard candy coating with chocolate inside. In little crunchy dollops. Also the most multi-faceted candy. I don’t want to seem as if I’m channeling the “Bubba” character from “Forest Gump” but … you’ve got your regular M&Ms, you’ve got your dark-chocolate M&Ms (maybe my favorite incarnation, but a handful can rev you up like a race car), you’ve got your peanut M&Ms, your almond M&Ms … Ultimately, give me a pound bag of regular M&Ms, a place to stand … and I can move the world.