This and That

One of the wonderful treats that I could get was the foil-wrapped and brightly colored box of sweet, caramel-flavored peanut and popcorn snack Cracker Jacks. The delicious snack had buried deep inside the wax-coated flavor-keeping pack was a hidden treasure. It may have been a ring, a whistle, a metal-balled game, or plastic animal. Things have changed. The flavor is still there, but those prizes lack the lure and desire to claim them. The last time my yearning to visit this childhood memory caused me to actually buy and sample this concoction, I was disappointed. The flavor was the same. The popcorn still had the rich caramel coating, the peanuts still settled closer to the bottom, but the prize I found was a lick-em and stick-em tattoo. It wasn’t very exciting for an adult who had sampled the past buried treasures and regaled at the quest of finding these worthwhile little caches.

I often find myself purchasing a similar product fiddle-faddle. It has a buttery, sweet flavor of caramel or toffee and comes in a larger sized package, for my adult sized appetite. It has the peanuts that often sticks to the clusters of popcorn welded together by the toffee or caramel. To me, tasting the peanut embedded in the clump is the hidden treasure and I know that I won’t be disappointed. I know that there will not be some reward lying unclaimed at the bottom of the box.

The only disappointment that I may feel is that there is no more of this scrumptious snack left in the package and a feeling of guilt when I think that I ate the entire package and that I was unable to satisfy my appetite to just two or three of those luscious clumps. My heart and childhood memories of those hidden prizes still belong to Cracker Jack, but my adult appetite belongs to fiddle-faddle.