Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Ice Breakers

You all recall the hubbub about Ice Breakers Pacs, the small blue packets that hold white Ice Breakers powder. You pop one in your mouth, the little blue packet magically dissolves, releasing a rush of minty freshness. While they are still on the shelves of stores while supplies last, Hershey discontinued making the stuff.

The story that made its way around the media and the public was that the little blue packets resembled the plasticene packets in which garden variety heroin, cocaine, crack, and crystal meth is delivered to the consumers by their drug dealers, confusing law enforcement officers, who might mistake a law-abiding citizen wanting to freshen his or her breath with a drug dealer flashing his or her product out on the street and arrest the law-abiding citizen, or confusing children of tender years, who might pay five or ten or twenty bucks to a drug dealer while believing that they are buying little blue packets of breath freshener and enter the seedy underworld of drug addiction.

That's the story you have read or have heard or have seen in the various news media.

But the story you have read or have heard or have seen in the various news media is just that -- a story. A cover-up.

And I am here to reveal the truth. It was the Catholics. It was the other Christians. They stopped the Hershey Company.

If you've tried a little blue packet of minty freshness, you know that the packet, as if by magic, migrated to the roof of your mouth and became stuck there; and nothing you did could get the thing off the roof of your mouth. And if you read the little instruction booklet that came in the little black and blue plastic box, you found out that you're not supposed to bite into the little blue packet of minty freshness, lest you suffer dire consequences.

I was eight years old. Sister Mary Felicia, blessed old battle-axe of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, screamed, "Stop that, young man!" interrupting the dress rehearsal of First Holy Communion for the stupid, stupid, public school Catholic kids; and I was the subject -- or object, rather, because that's how we were treated, of her outrage because I tried to scrape the Body of Christ off the roof of my mouth with my finger. The white wafer wasn't actually the Body of Christ at that time because it hadn't been transmogrified, yet, and was still just a piece of -- well, I guess it was just bread, but it reminded me of Ping-Pong balls.

There were two major rules, along with many, many less-than-major rules about Holy Communion. The first major rule was that unclean hands -- those attached to the arms of stupid, stupid, public school Catholic kids -- could not touch the Body of Christ, a violation of which could only be cured by confessing this Mortal Sin to a priest, who might grant absolution conditioned upon performing the Catholic form of community service, that is, kneeling there outside the Confessional and reciting the Art's-Father-Who's-Art-in-Heaven prayer like about 50 times, saying the Hail-Mary-Full-of-Grace missive about 50 times, and then saying the Act of Contrition, which I never learned, but, you know, like mouthed some words in the religion classes for the stupid, stupid public school Catholic kids; and the second major rule, even more major than the first, was that chewing on the Body of Christ was absolutely forbidden -- stupid, stupid public school Catholic kids who even thought about such cannibalism earned an express one-way ticket to the burning fires of Hell with no chance of redemption; and telling of this vilest of Mortal Sins to a priest during Confession undoubtedly ended in human sacrifice. You remember the excuse -- "Oh, [s]he moved to Montana."

Race memory. Those little blue xylitol packets brought to mind centuries of horrible experiences to Catholics and the rest of the Christians, so much so that the agents of the Pope secretly intervened, kind of like in one of those Godfather movies, leaving the head of a chocolate bunny in Humberto P. Alfonso's bed.

The truth? It was the Catholics. It was the other Christians. They stopped the Hershey Company.

Posted by Bill at February 22, 2008 09:40 PM