Monday, December 02, 2002
 

We always have someone bring food to Victorian literature, since it runs right through supper, and everyone tends to be more alert to the material if there's food present. I brought it today. My original intention was to cook something, probably cookies, as some others had done. However, as the week wore on, it quickly became apparent that I had neither the time nor the inclination to bake. This morning, I threw in the towel for good and went on a Harris Teeter run (I was out of veggie dogs, anyway). I had planned to get cookies, but cookies had already been done. Ditto for potato chips, ditto for pretzels, ditto for fruit (and who calls fruit snack food, anyway?). Then I saw it: the Little Debbie Snack Foods display [cue sounds of heavenly choirs, ringing of chimes, ethereal glowing, &c]. Childhood flooded back in tantalizing memories of, well, lard. Sugar. Cream. Fat. All those things that made playtime with Karla so good. And then I saw them: the Zebra Cakes. The alpha and the omega of junk food. Even better than Twinkies, and that's some seriously high praise, coming from me (though I haven't had one of those fried Twinkies yet, so it may be that greater glories still await me). So I snatched up the Zebra Cakes, along with some white cheddar popcorn (my firm snacking belief being that one must have both sweet and salty), and my veggie dogs, and headed to the cash register, where I was rewarded with a Very Strange Look from the checker-outer (apparently, this was a combination hitherto unknown at the 21st/Hillsboro Harris Teeter).

After my initial euphoria, it occurred to me that other mid-twenties grad students might find Little Debbie a bit on the strange side, but, as I had not actually finished today's reading, that concern got brushed aside.

I shouldn't have worried for a second. When the snacks came out at halftime (as I like to call it, since it usually does come between two brawls), the response was mixed joyful nostalgia as a beloved childhood treat reappeared and what can only be described as an out-and-out experience of the sublime on the part of those who'd (*gasp*) never partaken of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes before. It was a tremendous hit, easily the biggest of the classroom season (moral: laziness and gluttony will take you far). I seriously wish I'd had a tape recorder to preserve the reactions, which ran along the lines of:

"What are these? [looks at box] They look weird. Someone else take one; I can't eat both. Are they dry? [unwraps, takes bite] Good god in heaven. These are wonderful. What are these? [retrieves box] This is wonderful. This is delicious. Can I have another one?"

And that was the professor. That's me; bringing joy and happiness where'er I go. (or just providing fuel for heart attacks. one or the other)

Elvisette philosophized at 7:48 PM