Sunday, August 11, 2013

Dear Jelly Belly

1976- A year marked for Americans by a giddy love for their country in the spirit of the bicentennial.  A young Sylvester Stallone captured our imaginations with the first Rocky movie, and Elton John and Kiki Taylor raced to the top of the Billboard charts with "Don't Go Breaking My Heart".  However, not all was good, decent, and patriotic.  While we barbequed, drank, and shot each other with Roman candles to the end of disco era, an evil festered, ready to bludgeon the baby seal that was our collective happiness.  That malicious goo of dread and misery was you, Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. 

You are not buttered popcorn.  You are not a delicious juicy pear, a tart green apple, or the most delicious of all soft drinks, the Cream Soda.  You are an imposter, a mimic, and a charlatan.  You are what happens when science goes awry and laughs in the face of all that we know and love.  Fun fact given by your company website: it takes seven to twenty one days to make one Jelly Belly Jelly Bean.  I guess that is how long each spore gestates before bursting from its host's stomach to fill the world with false hopes of honey buns and root beer.

What sort of crossroads deal did you have to make to steal the very essence and flavor of these things that we love, and put them in your sugary tempting death beans?  Did you bury a picture of popcorn, some graveyard dirt, and the backbone of a black cat and wait for some demon to show up and strike a deal?  Maybe Jeffrey Alan Jelly Belly, Sr. has that much juice with the devil that he just had to snap his fingers for the Lord of the Flies to appear.  I don't care what sort of hoodouin, mugumbo, juju, or voodoo you have gotten into, because none of it is justified by you making your beans taste just like a cherry.  Is your eternal jelly bean soul a worthy price for this sorcery?

I will stand strong.  No longer will I eat bags upon bags of your confectionery conglutinates, encased in a candy coated crust of lies and sugar.  I will return to my mistress that is Sour Patch Kids, which reliably taste only of green, yellow and red, and are dusted with the tart and tingly taste of sweet wholesome freedom.




1 comment:

  1. Here I am, slightly late to the game but commenting none the less.....recenly I had a team mate KNOW based upong his personal experiences that PopCorn was the most hated and loathed flavor in the entire Jelly Belly kingdom earned us a coveted (by us anyway) clue in a scavanger hunt. I can see that I am one of the few tatebud impaired consumers that keeps that flavor on the shelf. I do however appreciate your honesty even though I firmly believe that the JalapeƱo flavor is much more disgusting and was created in Satan's kitchen.

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