suckerpunched by biscuits

Peek Freans, I am so angry at you right now. More specifically I am angry at someone or a group of someones in your marketing department.

Okay, perhaps you've seen the noisome ads for their new line of "better-for-you" cookies, where they tell you you'll have to "find a new way to be bad." I don't think I could possibly rant enough about how much I hate the equation of eating with badness. I hate it when desserts are called "sinful," I hate it when people talk about "being bad" when they have a piece of cake, and I especially hate it in smarmily self-satisfied ads that feature adult women making use of whoopee cushions. If you want to talk about the morality of food, there is a perfectly legitimate discussion to be had about food production, animal treatment, and the environmental impact of transporting foods over long distances. Go to it, people. I will not be joining you, but it is a conversation I can respect.

There are a million and one things going on in the world that can be described as "bad," but calories are not among them. I suppose, however, that judging ourselves and each other about what we eat is a nice distraction from worrying about, say, genocide. So that's a plus.

I will admit, however, that I had brushed off the advertising with no more than a withering glare at the TV, and the application of my mute button. No, the thing that pushed me over the edge was today's cookie promo party in the mall. It wasn't the annoying dance music. (Not even when they played "Bad Girls.") It wasn't the perkiness of their spokespeople repeating the slogans into the microphone. It was that they were handing out packages of sample cookies labelled "for women only."

Let's just take a minute to absorb that one, folks.

If there had been even one person there I could reasonably have screamed at, I would have done it. Instead, I'll have to exercise my bad girl muscles by writing a furious letter. So much more rewarding than either eating a whole bag of cookies or agonizing about it.