Area Child Trades Full-Size Candy Bar For Used Sedan
Candy prices are up 7.7% in a year. On one Ohio street, a single chocolate bar now comes with a title, a spare key and 112,000 miles.
WESTERVILLE, Ohio—An 8-year-old trick-or-treater traded a single full-size chocolate bar for a 2011 four-door sedan on Thursday evening, in what neighbors described as a fair deal for the sedan's former owner, as candy prices continued to climb ahead of Halloween.
The sedan, a silver model with 112,000 miles and one working rear speaker, was handed over in his own driveway by Dale Haskins, 54, a fictional retiree who said he had been "looking to get into chocolate" since spring. "I did the math," Haskins said, signing the title on the hood. "The car loses value every single day. The bar does not."
Candy and gum prices are up 7.7% from a year ago and more than 18% over two years, according to federal data cited by NPR. Analysts say the climb reflects cocoa costs from 2025 that are only now reaching the shelf, and that chocolate prices, once raised, tend to stay raised.
Haskins said, signing the title on the hood.
The child, identified by her parents only as Maddie, a fictional third-grader dressed as a tax attorney, said she had not planned to sell. "He asked if it was full-size," she said. "I said yes. He got very quiet and went inside to get his keys."
By 8 p.m. the street had developed what one fictional resident called "a functioning secondary market." A father on the corner offered a riding mower for two peanut butter cups and was turned down. A teenager dressed as a ghost was seen carrying a fun-size bar inside a small fireproof safe. An email from the homeowners association, sent at 8:14 p.m., reminded residents that candy may no longer be left in driveways overnight "due to theft and appraisal concerns."
Buckeye Gold & Loan, a fictional pawn shop two miles away, said it had begun accepting chocolate as collateral. "A man came in with a king-size bar and the whole staff just stood there," said its fictional manager, Terri Vance. "We wrote him a loan against it. Fourteen percent. Same rate as a boat."
Continued on page A6, which has been appraised and is not for sale
