Written On My Heart(s)

It’s that time of year.  You can reveal your deepest feelings to your true love using NECCO’s Conversation Hearts, those dry, nasty little pastel-colored candies stamped with clever sayings.

The New England Confectionery Company (Ooooohhh, I get it!) has been using the same recipe for over one hundred years.  It’s a concoction of sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, gums, food coloring and flavoring.  Once the ingredients are mixed, the dough is rolled flat, the words are printed, then it’s cut into tiny hearts.

Traditional imprints dating back to 1902 are Kiss Me and Be True.  Over the years, phrases have been added and dropped.  This year they dropped Occupy My Heart, a play on the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Who needs politics in our Valentine candy?  In 2013, twenty sayings were retired and for some of them, you can understand why.  Dig Me and Hep Cat are obviously dated, as is Fax Me.  They also dropped You Rock, which befuddles me, as I use that phrase a lot.  Hmm…  Maybe I need to update my verbiage.  Number twenty on that year’s drop list was You Are Gay.  Seriously?  That was a thing?

You should know that NECCO is adding some new sayings to this year’s batch of conversation hearts.  You’ll notice some emoticons joining the ranks, which you figure, why not, our vocabularies are shrinking at an alarming rate.  This truth must be reflected in our Valentine’s Day confections.  They’ve added a mustache emoji.  A few of this year’s new sayings are the winners of an elementary school contest.  You can tell, as these would be Pugs & Kittens, Girl Power, and Luv 2 Dance.  They’re also adding Te Amo, Je T’aime, and BFF. 

So before Saturday, head on out to your neighborhood what-not shop and pick up some sweet treats for your BFF, who Luvs 2 Dance.  Don’t feed them to your Pugs & Kittens, though, because that will just end with pastel colored puke on your living room rug.  Word to the wise.