WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2009
So I’m looking through the ads in the paper and see that Klondike Bars are on sale. And I get to thinking that it must be thirty years since I’d had one. And then I think, hell, I’m an adult now! I can buy my own Klondike bars! Kind of like when I was 32 and explaining to someone how I couldn’t possibly buy Apple Jacks because Mom never allowed us to get sugary cereals – before realizing I’d SQUANDERED HALF OF MY ADULT YEARS EATING GRAPE NUTS BECAUSE I DIDN’T THINK I WAS SUPPOSED TO BUY WHAT I REALLY WANTED.
But that’s a story for my therapist…if I had one. Anyway, I hit the store and lo and behold! There they were – aluminum wrappers shining in the frosty mist of the refrigerated section! I bought all of them cuz basically, I had A LOT of catching up to do. Did you know they have a thicker, chocolate shell now? After eating five already today, the jury is still out on whether that’s good or not.
So then that stupid jingle goes through my head as I’m tossing the last wrapper away. And I thought, “What would I do for a Klondike bar?” And I thought about this for a long time and then I realized the answer.
Not a whole helluva lot. I mean, come on! It’s just a Dilly Bar without the stick, right? How much is it really worth? Fifteen cents? Even with inflation I’m sure the cost of a small brick of frozen milk isn’t that much.
But Madison Avenue can’t be wrong, right? And there are 1,256,777 videos on the web showing the extreme lengths people would go to for one. And while I’m especially impressed with the guy who does that thing with the llama, mayonnaise and twenty feet of hot pink plastic lanyard lacing, I decided to run a little focus group using my children on this very question.
Me: What would you doooooo for a Klondike Bar? (I believe there’s a tiny clause on the wrapper that says one is required to sing it. Of course I also believe the bear on the wrapper is named Reuben Alejandro II and can read minds)
Jack: What do you mean? What does that mean?
Margaret: (looking over her glasses at me over her copy of Atlas Shrugged) Why are you singing? And why are you jumping around so much?
Me: I just had five Klondike Bars. But that’s beside the point. (sticking the landing on a very awkward cartwheel) I asked you a question.
Jack: What question? What kind of question?
Me: What would you dooooo for a Klondike Bar?
Margaret: Duh. Go to the fridge and get it.
Jack: You’re spinning so much I’m getting motion sickness.
Me: No! You don’t get it! You’re supposed to say that you’d do something totally crazy for this!
Margaret: That’s stupid. It’s just ice cream.
Me: Okay, but let’s pretend you had to do something bizarre to have one.
Jack: Why? (sometimes I think Jack isn’t really listening to me. But I might just be paranoid)
Margaret: He’s got a point…for once.
Me: Just pretend then! Pretend you’d do something totally whacked out to acquire a Klondike Bar…to feel it in your possession! To taste the creamy goodness! (I manage four somersaults in a row and accidentally roll down the stairs)
Margaret: Okay. I’d run up to the store and buy one.
I’m not sure that proved my point. I’m not sure I had any point. But once the sugar buzz wore off and I collapsed, panting as the room spun around me, my shoulders aching from the somersaults, I realized something. That there probably wasn’t anything I’d really do for a Klondike Bar, now that I’d OD’d on them. And a small part of me died inside. And then I threw up.
The Assassin