Quote of the Day (vol. ii): “Every crowd has a silver lining.” –P.T. Barnum
When one undertakes to maintain a blog of conversation, observation and instigation, an unspoken underlying assumption must be present in the writer’s mind that TB has a talent for seeing through life’s daily b.s. In fact I do believe myself, rightly or not, to be perceptive on a range of matters from finding humor where others miss it to politics to sports. Alas, my strength in this area is not all encompassing and today I ran headlong into yet another part of life where I am as a babe in the woods. I cannot resist good marketing for food products.
Not feeling inspired for a full grocery run, I opted this afternoon to stop by Fresh Market for a few overpriced but generally tasty selections for dinner. On my way through the bakery section I happened upon a display featuring Fresh Market’s newest product–“cinnamon crisps.” The name alone produced a little drool that I discretely wiped on my sleeve before being noticed by other shoppers. Packaged in a non-descript clear plastic container, I could see that these “crisps” were nothing more than bread scraps toasted and sprinkled with cinnamon and marked up a thousand percent. This weak packaging, in fact served to perfectly counter the name of the new delicacy and I was prepared to ignore them. Then I saw the sign on the display. “These addictive, buttery crisps are delicious on their own, or mixed with a little marscarpone cheese and drizzled with honey for a delightful original breakfast.”
As you may have already divined, that did it. I paid $2.69 for a pile of crumbs that were being swept onto the floor and gathered for the garbage only a week ago before some evil genius decided some sucker might actually pay for the privilege of carting them out of the store. “Buttery”, “marscarpone” and “honey” were all it took. Now, you might, if you are charitable, be saying to yourself, “hey TB, that was a bad move, but one any of us might have made in your shoes.” So let me add this to the equation–I went immediately in search of “a little marscarpone cheese”. There was none to be found. I asked an employee hovering between the bakery-cheese-dairy triangle if they carried it and got only a blank stare in return. But the damage was already done. Once determined to buy the stale bread, I could not be deterred, my dreams of a marscarpone-honeyed breakfast treat be damned.
I ate a few on the way home. Here’s the scorecard:
- Buttery–nope
- Crispy–nope
- Cinnamonny–marginally
- Marscapone–unavailable
- Honey–moot
- Addictive–uh, no.
Damn, I fell for it again. Oh well, back to reading these old Peanuts comics. Charlie Brown’s getting ready to kick a field goal and it looks like Lucy isn’t gonna pull the ball away this time.
Travellinbaen 
Don’t you just hate it when the object of your desire turns out to be a dud AND you have wasted money on it too? Sounds kind of like dating – just adds insult to injury.
Or there is this dilemma – Jerry Lee’s would always carry some kind of pie – one in particular was called Mississippi Mudd – you could get two individual pies for $2. He would get me hooked on something like that and then quit carrying it all together. That is not a nice thing to do to Jessie Lou I can assure you.
Let me know when Charlie Brown meets up with the little red haired girl – of course, those are my favorites!
You’re killing me
and it’s Lucy
I was afraid of that. But I didn’t want to look it up. Just fixed it. But really, doesn’t it seem more likely that PP would be playing football than Lucy?
She was the Bull D of the group
Perhaps Lucy was trying out some of her psychiatric skills on Charlie Brown. She was helping him to build character.