The Poptart Manifesto

by Rick Gualtieri

  Disgusted, I made my way to the front of the room and plopped myself down at the bridal party table. This was good timing as they started serving dinner right about then. First up was soup and salad followed by a plate of lobster tail. Finally they brought out the main entrée, filet mignon. I was starting to dig in when one of the waiters asked me why I hadn’t touched my lobster. I told him I don’t like lobster and he started giving me attitude.

  “It’s good. Maybe you should try it first.”

  To which I replied, “Maybe you eat giant underwater roaches, but I don’t.” That drew a hard glare from him, but it got the point across.

  Since none of my table-mates had any such qualms with lobster, most of them gorged themselves before wandering away to mingle again. After a while, I noticed that I was alone at the table, well almost. Belle was still seated too. I asked her why she wasn’t sitting with her boyfriend and she told me that he was in a mood and was hanging out at the bar.

  “It’s fine with me,” she continued, “I’m starting to get a headache anyway.”

  Being the ever helpful guy I am, I suggested she head to the back room, where they had us wait during cocktail hour, and maybe lie down for a few minutes. She agreed that it was a good suggestion, but then added, “I don’t feel like getting up.” At that, she slid a few chairs together and laid down right there at the table.

  Yeah it was a bit odd, but before I get to this next part let me just describe the layout for you. We were at a rectangular table on a raised dais at the front of the room. Lying down on the chairs, she couldn’t be seen from the crowd so not a big deal right? Well except she was lying down next to me, so that her head was on the chair right next to where I’m sitting. Yeah, you can see where this is heading right?

  There I was, enjoying the steak and minding my own business, and who comes walking over? Yep, the boyfriend (she had pointed him out to me earlier) along with some other dude.

  “Hey buddy, have you seen Belle?” he asked, and just like a jack-in-the-box, up comes her head from pretty much the direction of my lap. The look on his face was about what you’d expect. The look on my face was probably about what you’d expect too. And of course, rather then leaving well enough alone, the other asshole had to chime in and ask if we’re busy and should they come back later. Note to self: kick that guy’s ass later.

  Her boyfriend was probably in his fifties. He definitely had that whole sugar-daddy vibe to him. Regardless, I wasn’t too worried about him beating me to a pulp. But then again, I also didn’t want to get into a fist fight for no good reason either. It’s the truth! I wasn’t pussying out. Well OK, maybe I was a little. Anyway, being the diplomatic chap that I am, I pretended to spot someone I know in the crowd and then proceeded to get the hell out of Dodge before he could say another word.

  I didn’t look back and instead spent a good while in the crowd talking to people I really didn’t want to talk to. Fortunately, I somehow managed to dodge that bullet as the only thing I heard about it for the rest of the reception was Sarah pulling me aside to ask angrily, “What the fuck did you do?”

  I don’t answer to her, but sometimes it’s better to just go with the truth rather then make a scene. “Nothing.” From her glare I doubted she believed me, but I also could have cared less at that point.

  Most of the rest of my time there was fairly uneventful, at least up until the point Belle found me off in a corner and again sat down next to me. “Mind if I hang out here?” I’m not stupid, but then again she’s hot, so I told her that I didn’t mind at all. I casually asked where her boyfriend was. “He left,” was all she answered and I had the good graces to not ask about it further. We engaged in some small talk when finally she dropped the bombshell. “You know. I’m kind of wishing I had asked for one bed. Maybe next time I will.”

  I was spared the need to scrape my jaw off the floor and sputter something stupid by Ben. He and Betty were getting ready to leave and, since we had rented our tuxes at the same place, he offered to drop mine off as well. Seeing a chance for a suave exit, as opposed to whatever idiocy was probably going to fly out of my mouth, I turned to Belle, smiled and then leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek before walking away. Smooth, no? Yeah, well it was the best I could come up with.

  One quick change later and I was back in my street clothes. Belle was nowhere to be seen, so I headed for the door. Before I could go, one of Sarah’s relatives accosted me to have one last round of Sambuca shots with him. I didn’t recall ever having a first round of shots with him, but what the hell. Ben came over to get my tux and, while doing so, asked, “You did get her phone number before she left, right?” Motherfucker! Still, it was probably for the best. Girlfriend and all, I reminded myself. I said my goodbyes to the crowd, then Ben dropped me off at Penn Station to catch the train back home.

  I’d like to say this is where my tale ends and we all lived happily ever after. But, yep, there’s an epilogue, my friend.

  I got home and immediately crashed.

  What the fuck kind of question is that? None of your business even if I did before going to sleep! Now if you’re done enquiring about my jerking off habits, I shall finish my tale.

  The next morning my girlfriend popped by. Long story short, I hadn’t done laundry yet and she smelled Belle’s perfume on the clothes I had lent her the night before. Without giving me a chance to explain, she called me an asshole and stormed out. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

  Since then, I’ve also learned that Sarah’s still pissed at me for doing whatever it is she thinks I did during the wedding and lied to her about. Jake’s pissed at me too because he has to deal with Sarah. In addition, I found out that Belle’s boyfriend was trying to get my address out of Jake, for what I can only speculate starts with “kick” and ends with “my ass”. Ben? Well he finds this whole thing fucking hilarious. Can’t stop laughing about it, but isn’t lifting a finger to help either so screw him. As for me, I’m just laying low for now.

  And that is my story, my friend. I thank you for listening. Just so that I don’t leave you on a downer, I’m sure most of this will blow over. I pretty much doubt I’ll be getting any visits from middle aged strangers. I’m also fairly sure that once my girlfriend calms down she’ll hear me out. As for Sarah...fuck her! She can stay pissed at me. I don’t give a shit about that part. As far as everything else goes, at the very least I’ve sure as hell learned a few lessons from all of this, lessons which you might want to take to heart:

  1) Always check appetizers for six legs before spooning them onto a plate.

  2) Only go to churches where the priests drink decaf.

  3) The next time someone asks you to be in their wedding party, punch them immediately in the face. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

  And finally, if you’re going to get blamed by everyone for doing something anyway, then you might as well just do it to begin with.

  Next time, I’ll be the one asking for one bed. Heh! Safe, my ass!

  The Poptart Manifesto

  I love Saturday mornings. They make me feel like a kid again. Coming downstairs on a weekend is like reliving those moments from when I was ten and had no school, no commitments, hell no purpose at all waiting for me. I make it a point to celebrate those feelings by indulging in a few kidlike activities, not the least of which is to plop down in front of the TV for a few hours of mind-numbing cartoons...or at least some DVDs of cartoons as the TV networks seem to have come to the conclusion that the news is of far greater importance to the world than Super Friends and Bugs Bunny.

  This particular Saturday, I came downstairs with my girlfriend of about a month, Rachel (after a night of non-kidlike activities), and proceeded, as I normally do, straight to the kitchen for my typical weekend breakfast. She followed and immediately began digging through the refrigerator for eggs, juice and other standard fare. Finding what she was after, she turned to see me pulling from the cabinets my weekend staple: a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts.

&nb
sp; “That’s what you’re eating?” she asked.

  “Yep. Strawberry Pop-Tarts and a glass of chocolate milk...mankind’s greatest achievement in the breakfast arts!”

  “Are you seven?” was her reply.

  “If I was, then that would make you a pedophile,” I quipped back giving her my best smirk.

  She gave me a slight look of disgust and went back about her business. A pretty good response to my feast of choice, all things considered.

  My last girlfriend had never stopped needling me about this little weekend fetish of mine. It was an annoyance, albeit a manageable one, and definitely a battle she wasn’t going to win. I had hoped she would finally come to an acceptance of sorts about it. Whether or not that would have come to pass, I don’t know. It never got that far.

  What I do know is that, at some point she had apparently read one too many sensationalist news stories and developed this mad-on against all things containing high fructose corn syrup. One day we were happily sitting around drinking our Pepsi’s and eating whatever junk we pleased, and the next it was the devil’s sweetener and god forbid we eat one more bite lest we begin growing tumors out of our eyes. Never one to over-indulge in anything, I could have cared less. She could fool herself into thinking she’d live forever if she only stuffed herself with cane sugar, and I’d just go about my days as before. All was fine.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t fine with her. Curse whoever invented the spare key! I came home one day to find she had tossed out all of my food containing the verboten HFCS and replaced it with, no-doubt, foul tasting all natural alternatives. In a panic, I threw open my cupboards and discovered that even my beloved strawberry tarts had not been spared her wrath. They had been cast away and in their place was a box labeled Organic Toaster Pastries.

  “What the hell is this!?” I demanded of her.

  “They’re all-natural. If you insist on eating crap, it might as well be healthy crap.”

  “Healthy? What on earth could possibly make these things healthy? Are they genetically engineered in a secret lab? Do hippies lovingly bake them in ancient stone cairns? Are they free-range Pop-tarts?”

  “Stop being a baby! Just try them. They taste just as good.”

  So I did.

  My response to eating one was to compose this lovely Haiku to her:

  Organic Pop-Tarts

  I drink a gallon of bleach

  Your taste is still here.

  We broke up a short time later. Coincidence? Perhaps not.

  Anyway, I was jostled from of my reverie just as I was about to take my first bite. It was Rachel and she sounded in a panic...well maybe panic is a bit strong of a word, but as near to panic as one can get from a strawberry filled breakfast pastry.

  “Wait!” she said. “What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to toast those first?”

  “I have to do nothing of the sort!” I countered. “I like them cold.”

  “Eww, they're no good cold. Why do you think that they're called POP-tarts? Because they're supposed to POP up out of the toaster nice and warm. Christ, even a three year old knows this.”

  *sigh* Perhaps this wasn’t going to go as well as I had hoped.

  “Don’t get me started,” I said, hoping that was the end of it.

  “No seriously! You’re supposed to toast them”

  “Listen,” I said, knowing that there was likely no stopping the rant that I could feel bursting up from within. “I know that Kellogg’s spends millions of dollars per year on an advertising campaign to make us think that we have to eat them hot. They’ve also tried to convince us that we should try them frozen, but I don’t see you bringing that up? Why? Because deep down you know it to be a blasphemy!”

  “I didn’t...”

  “Blasphemy, I said! And if one of their campaigns is just a lie, doesn’t that make all of their others suspect too?”

  “I hadn’t really thought of it.”, she answered, nonplussed.

  “Of course not! Because THEY don’t want you to. But not I! I am a free thinker. I have long since wondered: if we were truly meant to eat our pop-tarts hot then wouldn't it just be simpler to make them toxic to eat cold? There are several foods out there that are downright lethal if not prepared properly. Try eating improperly prepared Fugu and see where it gets you.”

  “Did you just compare eating pop-tarts to blowfish?”

  “I’m trying to make a point here. A few random cold pop-tart related deaths and the world would surely abandon all thought of eating them right out of the package. Yet this is not the case. Upon much inner reflection regarding this conundrum, I think I have finally seen meaning to all of this.”

  “Please, do tell. I can’t wait to hear this,” she added as she began to go about making her own breakfast.

  Not even remotely fazed by her insolence, I continued, “What it essentially comes down to is the classic struggle between the haves and the have-nots. In this case, the conspiracy goes even further then the sad divide between those who have toasters and can afford the time to use them and those who cannot.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “You don’t get it do you? What you see as just a cute commercial with cartoon pop-tarts frolicking about is, in fact, nothing of the sort. Kellogg’s is calling out to the Bourgeois society and telling them to show their superiority to the filthy huddled masses by eating their pop-tarts warm and laughing at us while they do so. They can do this because they know the working class is forced to endure the humiliation and scorn of eating their toaster pastries cold. They mock the lower classes by pretending to sell the same pop-tarts to both the rich and the poor. At the same time, however, they are creating further class segregation by knowing that your average nine-to-five Joe Sixpack doesn't have the time to plug in his toaster and enjoy the rapture of warm, semi melted, fruit filling.”

  “There is a point you’re getting at here, right?” she interrupted, buttering some toast.

  “The point is that you need to open your eyes to the bigger picture. This is but one more way that the wealthy scoff at the workers of the world. They sit there in their high rises, eating their toasted pop-tarts, which have no-doubt been cooked for them by their servants, knowing that they and they alone have the idle time to unlock and enjoy the hidden heat-sealed magic within. This they do whilst knowing the closest the working man shall ever come to knowing that magic is if his house catches fire and burns down in the morning. This is the hidden message which Kellogg’s seeks to deliver upon us.”

  “I’m going to take my food into the other room. Let me know when you’re fin...”

  “BUT THEY HAVE FAILED!!” I triumphantly yelled, jumping in front of her. “And why? Because we, the proletariat, have taken the poor, cold, untoasted pop-tart and made it into one of our symbols of strength. Indeed, some of us revel in the cool crunch of the frosting and take pride in the cold, damp chewiness of our fruit fillings.”

  At that, I turned to the kitchen window and raise my arms high in triumph.

  “So rejoice with me, my brothers and sisters!” I shouted as I once again turned to face her. “Hold aloft your Pop-tarts! Hold them high and heat them in the warm glow of FREEDOM!!!”

  I was met with a polite golf clap and her response of, “And the point of all of this was again?”

  “I like my pop-tarts cold. Except for the organic kind, that is. The wealthy can keep those too.”

  “I didn’t say anything about organic.”

  “Perhaps not, but you would have. Trust me on this one.”

  Cork Quest

  Community Theater can be a wonderful thing to be a part of. You get to work with all sorts of interesting and talented people and, though the work is hard, the end result is well worth it. Giving the gift of entertainment to an audience is a thrill I never tire of. I love all parts of it. Well, OK, almost all parts of it. I’ve acted, directed, written, stage-managed, and even put in time with the running crew. About the only job I’ve ever done that I really couldn’t stand wa
s Properties Manager, also known as the props master. In a community theater setting, a more proper title for this job would be the director’s garbage scrounging bitch, because with a budget of about zero dollars that’s mostly what you are. You just get a cool name because nobody would sign up if they called it what it really was. For some reason, postings asking for volunteers that “must have a knack for dumpster diving” don’t get a lot of love. Go figure.

  Case in point, some years ago I was helping out in just such a role on a production of Lend me a Tenor, a musical about...well...I don’t really remember, but I’m sure it has to do with somebody borrowing a tenor, whatever that is. The cast and crew were very helpful in donating props for the play. As for the balance, well I mostly filled that from my own meager possessions, leaving my apartment even more barren then usual by the time show week approached. But one very minor detail still remained.

  “I need corks,” the director told me, halfway through dress rehearsal the day before the show.

  “Corks? Like a corkboard?”

  “No, stupid. Corks as in wine corks. You know, for the dinner scene. The lead needs to open a wine bottle. “

  “We already have the wine bottle,” I pointed out.

  “I know that, and I also know that we lost the cork to it during yesterday’s rehearsal. So I need another. In fact I need a handful because I’m sure we’re going to lose them every time we run the damn scene.”

  I gave him a quick, “Okey doke,” (paid or volunteer, you don’t argue with the director) and immediately headed out on what I was sure would be a quick trip to alleviate this one last little detail.

  I figured a liquor store would be an obvious choice. I had worked in one all through my college years and we always carried a good supply of spare corks. Since our little theater was in the seedier part of town, there were plenty to choose from.