Lunchables 2.0

A long time ago I wrote a stupid blog post. I wrote this stupid blog post on a blog site that I don’t really maintain anymore but, for some reason, keep online. The post in short: I saw a grown-up eating a Lunchable and it disturbed me and set me off on why I think Lunchables are generally horrible.

Months later I got a comment on that stupid blog post. I didn’t do anything with that comment aside from sharing it with a few friends present when I saw it. I didn’t share it online aside from just keeping it up on the site.

Anyway, I recently came across that comment again and I felt I had to share it because it’s just too ridiculous not to. I took out some details from the comment below because I’m not a jerk:

Okay. So this teacher thinks that she was writing Lunchables. Didn’t she see the post that was so critical of Lunchables? Also, she really put a lot of information out there, whether it was meant to be broadcast or meant for the Lunchables complaint department (where, just to clarify, I do not work). I think she thought that she was sending an email or something.

To be clear, I’m not making fun of this teacher, who is obviously good-natured even if she’s not incredibly internet savvy. Also, more importantly, she shares my dissatisfaction with, if not total disgust of, Lunchables. I just think it’s ridiculous that this is the comment I received on my stupid post—that a class of fourth grade kids and their nice teacher are contacting me in their attempt at consumer advocacy.

Also, Lunchables (or, I guess, Kraft) isn’t responding to her about this kid’s moldy chicken nuggets? The nuggets (that word…) were moldy? Twice? Come on Lunchables.

I didn’t even know that Lunchables did chicken nuggets. That sounds absolutely horrible. Are kids supposed to eat these chicken nuggets cold? Actually, cold chicken nuggets is probably the best case scenario here. It’s not like these kids are working in an office where they can put their lunch in a fridge, right? We now know that these chicken nuggets are moldy, but are kids also meant to unseal the little plastic sarcophagi that these lunches come in and eat luke-warm chicken after it’s been sitting in their cubby underneath a sweaty little hoody for three hours? I thought that kid-assembled pizza on uncooked dough was the most terrible lunch idea, but suddenly we have a new contender.

Anyway, here’s that original post:

Today I saw an adult eating a Lunchable.

Now, I’m pretty immature. (As I write this, a few toys from my favorite cereal are within view.)  But, really?  I think if you’re, say, in your thirties, and you whip out a Lunchable, and you’re not joking, you have to ask yourself some serious questions, including, among others, “Why am I 32 and eating a fucking Lunchable?”

To be fair, I don’t think I ever understood Lunchables or found them so appealing.  I remember Lunchables from when I was a kid.  I remember seeing commercials for them, including those for the pizza variety of Lunchable, and being kind of intrigued.  It might have seemed cool. Momentarily. Then I was like, “Wait a second.  The kid in this commercial is making his own pizza and it’s raw?? Why the hell is the pizza uncooked?? Why is he assembling his own pizza using what appears to be a cracker, or, at best, just a raw, small piece of dough and a little baggie of tomato sauce? I’m six years-old and I find this more weird than appealing.”

That cool kid in the commercial was “cookin’ up” his little, strange pizza, delicately spreading the shredded cheese on the dough with the sauce while all the other kids watched with awe.  I think they may have applauded.  Well, I didn’t get it and I still don’t.  To be really honest, I find the whole Lunchables thing kind of sad.  Now, I don’t want to start anything here, and I know some really great people who had Lunchables once in a while, and I’m sure a lot of parents just got their kids Lunchables because it was a treat or something cool, but to me Lunchables kind of suggest… neglect. I think I found it kind of sad—-in addition to just weird—-when I was little too. (“Why is this what he gets for lunch? I’m six years-old and I find this weird and sad.”)

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just too classy.  Maybe my family was just too fancy for Lunchables and I was too spoilled with crazy things like peanut butter and jam sandwhiches that took too long  to make (and probably cost less too).

I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about anymore… Oh yeah.  That guy.  An adult, a grown man, that I saw eating a Lunchable on his lunch break.  Maybe it was a little piece of nostalgia for him and he saw it in the grocery store this one time.  Or, maybe he’s a total weirdo and he buys these regularly.  Actually, either way it’s weird.

Because those things are fucking weird and the pizza is fucking raw.

And that’s the point of this post.

(Also, Lunch-able…. What’s the -able? Edible? Portable? You made lunch easy and portable? Is that it?  It’s lunch, alright assholes?  You’re not reinventing the wheel.)