I didn’t have to leave the front aisle of the Olney Harris Teeter in order to gather the Odd Things entries for this month. The seasonal Summer display included what might be the epitome of the bone-laziness of the American people crossed with a slightly less disgusting but still snort-inducing appliance.
First, this:
S’mores-in-a-bag. Not kidding.
A product which takes possibly the most nostalgia-infused production ever, which can only properly be produced by an open flame, the marshmallow held in the sweet spot of a campfire for just the right amount of time for the proper char and meltiness; the Hershey’s milk chocolate square poised on the graham cracker, ready to receive said marshmallow neatly and without slopping off the sides; the warm but not burning sensation of the gooey, melty, crunchy, perfect bite of a summer night; and puts it in a bag for shelf-stable consumption.
May whoever conceived of this travesty be condemned to having every marshmallow they ever try to toast fall off into the flames.
And then right next to the sacks of decadence was a stack of electric burners designed for melting marshmallows on a tabletop. Is there no end? Does anyone have house space for a single-use appliance designed for possibly the narrowest of applications ever? (Says the admitted owner of a breadmaker which has sat unused for many many years.)
And think of the mess when the marshmallow falls off your stick and melts on your kitchen table, or worse, falls on the burner itself!
Strolling over to the produce aisle, I found the third Odd Thing: Baby Groot flogging roasted pistachio nuts.
Is there a rivalry going on between advertising agencies? Baby Groot vs. Baby Yoda? I thought it was cute when I saw the “I was Groot” chopstick rests and even bought a couple, but this is really going too far. I can see that it’s way too late to stop the tide of merchandising tie-ins, but I never thought of Groot as a pistachio tree, and I bet he didn’t either. Assuming there are pistachios in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” universe.
