twitsandblobs

I just ate an entire box of Buttery Toffee Crunch ‘n Munch.  The only reason I ate it was because I couldn’t find the Screaming Yellow Zonkers that I really wanted.  They are next to impossible to find these days.  Jeez.  Back in the day one could find them at every convenience store in town.  But today, even the scariest Dollar General won’t have them.  What happened?  And while we are on the subject, I miss my Space Food Sticks. A couple of those babies and a pop of Tang after school and I was good to go.  Me and Buzz Aldrin.   We were ready for the moon baby!  Yeah, those were the days.  Does anyone else ever think about Space Food Sticks?  You know,  the little snack thingies that looked like the rawhide chew sticks you give the dog?  They came in several flavors and were each wrapped in the lightest possible weight aluminum looking wrapper (for space travel you know).  The paper made a celestial twinkly noise when you opened them and any kid at school who had them in their lunch bag was a bit of a rock star.  Ah, the good old days.  My mother packed them in my lunch because she didn’t want me consuming “that garbage they serve in the lunchroom.”  Hilarious.  Don’t get me wrong.  My mother was actually pretty persnickety about what we ate.  I was told to always fill my plate with foods sporting bright colors.  Red, green, orange, yellow.  And she didn’t mean candy; she meant fruits and veggies of course.  Our freezer was never stocked with ice cream or popsicles, and our pantry had not a whisper of the goods my friends boasted about.  You know, Oreos, Fritos, marshmallows.  My friend’s mother, who had five children at the time, kept everything and anything they wanted in the house.  If I had five kids, I would do the same thing.  To my mother, I kept my mouth shut about the inventory over there, but I knew where to get the hard stuff.  My mom would not have gone for it.  Oh no, we only ate treats that were home baked like my grandmother’s coconut cake that looked like a snowball, or my mother’s individual cheese cakes with cherries on top.  Strangely however, she was my dealer for Space Food Sticks and Tang.  I guess she figured that if it was good enough for the astronauts…… well you know.  The Zonkers  I discovered on my own once I was old enough to drive.  Had to keep those puppies under wraps (no pun intended) because they were bright yellow, and not fresh from the ground, therefore must have been “full of poison dyes.”    I stealthily kept them tucked under the front seat of my Ford Pinto.  Additionally, by three o’clock every afternoon of my high school years, I was laying down cold hard cash on the counter of Woody’s Grocery store to get my fix of Pepsi Cola and Zero Bars (my friend told me that because they were not chocolate they weren’t bad for your skin).  Whatever.   That was on the days I didn’t head to Rush’s for a corn dog and a Cherry 7 Up, or to the Zesto  Drive In for a chocolate dipped vanilla ice cream cone.  On odd days, I would sit hunched over in front of the TV watching Gilligan’s Island while picking stars, clovers, moons and hearts out of my secret stash of Lucky Charms.  A different day might bring a visit from a couple of Ding Dongs with a milk chaser (for calcium).  Ahhh.  Those were the days.  It is no wonder my brain cells are gone.  Fried from the preservatives.   The funny thing is that these days, I am a real snob about my food.  No pre-packaged poison for me.  Only fresh, organic, local, home-made goodies for me.  I even grow some of my own produce and make my own yogurt.  But I have to admit that every once in awhile, my taste buds get a hankering for a Space Food Stick.  Too bad, for they are gone from this earth (sorry I can’t help myself).  And yes, this is sad but, it is good to know that in a pinch the Crunch ‘n Munch isn’t half bad.