(c) Celine Sparks, 2023
Recent events have torn at the very fiber of our roots. What we were once accustomed to has found its place in the realm of the forgotten, or soon to be. Among our most trusted icons are those who have failed to withstand.
Plain and Peanut.
That’s all we used to call them. One had a peanut in the middle, and one was, you know, plain. We loved M&M’s because they were chocolate, bad for your teeth, and high in useless calories – all the components of really good eats were there.
We didn’t even really notice that they had shoes at all. So while people were getting up in arms about legs, and feet, the rest of us were – You mean there are shoes in this bag? I’m eating something attached to shoes? I don’t think it matters at this point what kind of shoes they are. The primary problem is that there are feet on something I’m putting in my mouth. It’s reminiscent of 2 Kings 4:40, “There’s death in the pot.” There’s feet in the bag. Same.
It’s all absurd. And I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be. The recent ad campaign of M&M’s is another one of those ploys to get people talking about their product on social media. It’s like when IHOP changed their name, when Coke put a new formula on the market, and when Kathy Strewbaski put an orange peel in her ear in the sixth grade. Some people just want attention.
Plain and Peanut.
It all breaks down for me when we get this literal, this concerned, over extremities on a piece of chocolate small enough you could hide it under a corn flake. Let’s start with a bigger issue. The thing doesn’t have a nose. At all.
I mean, their mom named them all M for Pete’s sake. How diverse did you think they would be? And they all have to wear their name on their chest in case they forget who they are.
When we were kids, M&M’s had not yet come to life. The ad campaign back then was, “They melt in your mouth; not in your hand.” Catchy. I can see why they changed the marketing strategy. I don’t ever remember having a strong desire to bolt to the grocery store because I suddenly had an urge for candy that wouldn’t melt in my hand.
It also wasn’t true. They were just hoping we wouldn’t find that out because we would eat them before they even had a fair chance to melt in our hands. We usually bypassed the hands completely, pouring them into the digestive tract directly from the bag.
I don’t care what kind of shoes they wear; I don’t care if they rename them; make them any color or shape; but please don’t mix them in with stuff like cashews and raisins.
Somewhere in the eighties, somebody swept their floor and had the idea to put all the findings in a zippy bag instead of the dustpan, and label it trail mix. Raisins and M&M’s mix together about as well as Def Leppard and the Pope. Give me pure, unadulterated little chocolate circles.
Plain and Peanut.
Love you and love everything you write!