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 There’s a certain evil substance I’m haunted by. It’s heinous for my mind and body, bad for the planet, must jet thousands of nautical, polluting miles in order to reach me here in the southwestern USA, and is… horribly… bright yellow. Few Homo sapiens look good wearing yellow, and even fewer look good chewing great gobs of yellow dye #230 between smacking, enthusiastic jaws.
I’m not one of the few good-lookers. Yet I persist in my love. I smack and chew. Awful!
Have I proclaimed my love for Wilson’sR Banana Flavour Toffee? No? Wait!
Look, it’s hard being in love with a loser.
Of course WBFT is only sold in South Africa. Which makes it a seriously egregious sin to order it in the USA. We’re talking gas-using, ozone-depleting, dolphin-hurting, mybad overload. We’re also talking zit-forming, cellulite inducing, liver-killing mood swings. Yeah. Like I need more of those. Its secondary chemical property ruins my teeth and gives me love handles. No one ‘loves’ handles. Ever.
And yet, mmmmmm. Yum! DoublePlusYum! (Equals: Addiction-brain double-platinum album.)
I am abased. I am ashamed. Yet I have no power over you, Wilson’sR Banana Flavour Toffee. I love you.
And yet—screw you, Wilson. Couldn’t you do this addiction-crap in a kinder way?
I don’t want to be this person—this person who needs you. I’d rather find a nice eco-friendly, locally spawned substitute toffee to love—but I’m losing this battle. I’ve tried many others. As it is, I need your flavor in my life, Wilson. Can we do this with some elegance?
Problem: you are made of horrible chemical things that probably don’t have a single natural ingredient other than ‘sugar’—and eco-people all know the eco-hazards of sugar plantations. (Wilson’s, you are not from an eco-friendly maker. This breaks my heart, Wilson! Can’t you get it together? At least buy your sugar from an ecologically savvy grower so we don’t have to hide our eyes from the UPS guy.)
Wilson? Can we talk?
As much as I’m repulsed by my own need, I’m more haunted by your Wilson’sR Banana Flavour Toffee. Its delicious flavor is like no other banana toffee—I’m not even sure it tastes like an actual banana—but it tastes like ‘banana flavor’ that is both so wrong and yet so right. So yum! So kid-raised-by-busy-parents-who-fed-TV-dinners yum! You’ve totally cornered our non-taste matrix! Those of us not raised on ‘food’ but rather ‘fud’ or ‘foodish” or “food-like substances. Banana-like is so much easier than ‘banana.’ (No messy peel or weird brown spots.)
“Porkish-chopish. Salad-ish. Cheezey-spray,” et al! Our childhood en masse!
Wilson—your banana-flavor thing is just so perfect! So let’s start from there. You are perfect. I love you, Wilson—you are the man. If you were a guy, rather than a flavor, and was I not happily married, I’d happily marry you! Yum!
Wilson! You could take over the world if you’d only pay a fair wage, offer health benefits to banana-flavorers, and encourage local banana-flavor scientists to pour their local test tubes into local sugar-toffee mixtures! Your face, Wilson, could be on the wrapper! Millions more like me would buy your toffees! If you’re cute. And if the wrapper weren’t so bright a yellow as it is. Are you cute?
Wilson, should we, you know, formulate a World Banana Toffee Eco-Domination Plan?
Updated 8/7/10; originally posted 6/2/09.
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Joy Nicholson lives in New Mexico with her husband where they have a special-needs dog rescue. She has published two novels, The Tribes of Palos Verdes: A Novel and The Road to Esmeralda: A Novel, but is mainly interested in non-fiction animal-welfare issues now.
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