Advertising to kids, that is. I went grocery shopping this evening, a task I only do when the need is most dire. I have a certain distaste for the activity, an aversion that would lead some to believe that my parents had died in some terrible shopping cart accident, or I got locked in a dairy freezer at five, or something. Neither is the case, and in fact I love that the grocery store contains one of my most favorite things in the world (food) but I hate that it contains one of my least favorite things in the world (idiots). Plus the whole experience is terribly inefficient. We're talking "Government Agency" level inefficiency here, folks.

You go to a store and grab a cart. What do you do with the cart? Well, you wander up and down isles until you find what's on your list (if you have one) and pile it in your cart. Unless you have OCD or plan ahead exceptionally well, the order in which items enter your cart is pseudo-random at best. When you've finished making your way up and down aisles that I swear are wider than one cart but not quite two carts in width (and don't get me started about that one that has the support beam right in the middle of it), you make your way to the checkout. At the checkout, what comes next? You pull all of your items from the cart and put them on a conveyor belt that stretches, oh, approximately three and a half feet. Each item you plan on purchasing is scanned, one at a time, until all items have crawled across the magical sensor that calculates how much you're willing to spend on the bare essentials and then multiplies it by two. In the meantime, while you're reaching for your wallet, or purse, or pulling a wad of bills directly out of your cleavage, a bag boy (or girl, let's not be sexist) is dutifully performing their, uh, well duty. And what Herculean task awaits their agile minds? They take each item you just removed from your cart, stuff it into a bag, and put it back into your cart. Obviously some people bag their own groceries, which makes this routine even more absurd, but I'm an elitist and insist that only the hired help handle my consumables down at the Piggly Wiggly. Once this elegant dance is completed, you take your happy little shopping cart out into the parking lot and, oh, guess what, empty the damn thing into your car. Sweet Christ my head is going to explode contemplating the futility of it all. You drive merrily home, day dreaming about ice cream socials and church bake sales, and finally arrive there, park your car, and proceed to empty it and bring all of your groceries into your home. If that wasn't enough, you then have to unpack every single item and place it on the appropriate cupboard or refrigerator shelf.

This is a farce of epic proportions. I'm tired of it. Shopping should consist of me opening my cupboard and finding that when I take out the jar of creamy peanut butter that has one spread left in it, a new one magically appears in its place with a slight displacement of air, a delightful "ding" sound, and perhaps the faint scent of ozone.

Monkeys could have come up with a better system than what is in place now.

But I digress, or regress, whichever indicates that I'm getting back to the point of this story. As I was doing my grocery shopping I made my way down the cereal isle. The adult in me (which I suppress whenever possible with a cocktail of NyQuil and Jolt Cola) picked up a delightful box of Honey Bunches of Oats. Mmm, fiber! But, the kid inside me, like a Goa'uld symbiote from Stargate, usually has full control of my body ("Nothing of the host survives.") And, so, naturally I'm drawn to some of the more sugary breakfast foods. I'll be honest, some days when I get up I want to just veg on the couch, eat ultra-sweetened cereal, and watch cartoons. Actually, I want to do that every day, but I can't afford not to go to work, nor can I afford the dentistry bills.

I perused the perennial favorites. Cap'N Crunch: Classic, but I don't know if I can trust a man who's been captain of a cereal for the past 40 years (not my joke, stole it from Friends). Cocoa Puffs: Can't deny its simple charms and the fact that it makes your milk into chocolate milk (which was even part of their ad campaign at one point), but not today. Cinnamon Toast Crunch: So very tasty, but I must admit that the little chef dudes creep me out a little, so I move along. Then I spy it, something I haven't had in ages: Honey Smacks! Only one word is needed to describe them: Dig'em! Well, I guess that's two words run together, but the guy's a fucking frog! Give him a break, next to Kermit he's the most successful amphibian in history (other than that first one that decided to crawl out of the primordial sea 400 million years ago, that dude was a superstar).

Anyway, the picture on the box of the bowl of cereal (enlarged to show texture) would have sold it to me itself, but the marketing geniuses over at Kellogg's played the trump card just in case I tried to bolt. On the front of the box is a very angry looking Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu ("Say 'Jedi' again!") and underneath him are the words "Light-Up SaberSpoon Inside" in deliciously science-fictiony letters. For the second time in the history of this blog I dropped to my knees and nearly wept.

I snatched up the box like the Silver Fox might snatch up Macaulay Culkin, and held it tightly to my bosom. (Mmm...bosom). Once the immediate endorphin rush passed, I looked around, nervously, paranoid, clutching my precious to me, making sure no one near would take it away from me. When I got home I flipped the box around to confirm that, in the excitement, I had not picked up a product that promised me a toy with a mail in form, $5.00, and 3 proofs of purchase. Much to my relief I had not and I began to read the back of box which extolled the virtues of my soon to be acquired SaberSpoon. And that's when I read the words I've so desperately wanted to read all my life:

"Start your day with real Jedi action"

I can think of nothing sweeter.

Behold the beauty of my SaberSpoon!

Tags: Grocery Shopping, Geek, Humor, Life, Star Wars