The Movie M&M Scam

I cannot resist M&Ms.  I'm not one of these people who can't keep his hands off chocolate like some addicts, but if there is a plate of M&Ms around, I'll dive in head-first if necessary.

When I took Little Smoot to see part of a movie this weekend, I bought myself a $3 box of the candy to chomp on while we watched the show.  The box certainly appeared to be large enough to satisfy my M&M craving for 90 minutes or so.  I took a picture of it with a can of my other addiction, Diet Vanilla Pepsi, so you could have a sense of scale.

The box certainly looks like it would be big enough to enjoy for a while, doesn't it?  Well, the problem is that the box is just a tad bit deceiving.  I opened the box and found that it contained a plastic bag of M&Ms.  Notice I didn't say it contained a bag "full" of M&Ms.  No, it contained a bag that was, at best, 1/3 full of M&Ms.  Apparently the other 2/3 of the bag contained some very expensive air.

I can understand that some products have a tendency to "settle" in their packaging, creating some space in a larger area, but these are M&Ms for heaven's sake.  How much settling could they possibly do?  I figured I must have paid at least a quarter for each "M" in the box.  It was a pretty pathetic sham, I thought.

I finished the whole box before the opening credits ever started (and long before the fire alarm chased us out of the theater).  I eventually had to resort to gnawing on my coat for sustenance.