Why is it that some things are never really the way they are supposed to be? Take Cracker Jacks for instance; Cracker Jacks look and sound so promising! When you finally manage to pry the lid open on the hard, sad, somehow sticky box; they are generally all clumped together in a rather sad looking mass. You persevere anyhow to get to the prize...then it happens....you hit a peanut! How can they always, always, always taste like rancid oil coated with varnish!! For some reason you suffer through the box, because when you were four your Aunt told you it was rude to be wasteful and because you KNOW the ring is at the bottom...the paper feels rather flat...too flat even for one of the whistles...wait, this isn't a nifty paper packet to open it's some flat folded tear a tab paper fold over!?! A tacky lick and stick 'I love Cracker Jacks' tattoo?? I will not eat cracker jacks again. It always felt like such a rip off even as a child when the prizes were cool to "have to suffer" through a whole box of that stuff to get a toy. I was really unhappy when someone bought a big bag with only one prize and expected people to happily eat it and share the prize. There are people who love those things, but I've always thought they were something to be suffered through. Then it was ok because there was something cool at the end.
I am really glad life isn't too much like Cracker Jacks. There are occasional rancid peanuts, sometimes a bunch of them. Sometimes the crappy sticky corn gets stuck in your teeth. You have to brush hard to really get rid of the flavour. Like life there are some rancid sticky spots you have to deal with but I am so thankful that there is a great prize in life...the living of it!
I remember pouting and being angry when I was given Cracker Jacks as a treat. I still get kind of upset when I have a box of them. Perhaps it's the slogan "When you're really good they call you Cracker Jack" If that was good I couldn't wait to be bad! I pulled the sticker eyes off my orange VW toy car and stuck them on my Aunt's floor, (so the floor could see it was me!) I coloured outside the lines, I was often disagreeable especially when offered Cracker Jacks. Fiddle Faddle, Crunch n Munch, Poppycock, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, Caramel Corn....all those things terrified me for years! I still cringe when I see the Cracker Jacks in the store...maybe someday I'll get over the fear of rancid peanuts and glumpy caramel corn but then again it's probably about as likely as me getting over my fear of clowns!...yikes!!
