Sunday, April 24, 2011

Kinder Surprise



Doggonit!  

I totally spaced out putting these Kinder Surprises in the Easter bags. Hang on, I must now kick my own ass. 

* Kick*  Ow!

* Kick*  Ow!

* Kick*  Ow!

* Kick*  Ow!

That'll teach me.

Kinder Überraschung as these are the German version. I intended to include these in the Easter bags to get rid of them. The chocolate is very low quality and it doesn't get any better just sitting there. But what do kids know about quality? Nothing, that's what. After all, they've only been bouncing around on Earth for six or so years, what can they reasonably be expected to know about chocolate? Nothing!

How many times have you heard something like this? Americans prefer milk chocolate and Europeans prefer dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is what Americans grew up on, that is what Americans are used to, and so that is what Americans persist in preferring. Europeans, however, appreciate darker chocolates because that is what they grew up with and so their tastes are more refined and more appreciative of the real fuller thing. Just like beer. Just like bread.

That is a total crock. It must not be overlooked that chocolate is American. Not USA American, but rather New World American, Central American.  Europeans came late to the game, they are the people who developed the process of conching, by accident, as well as the process of producing milk chocolate, on purpose, and it is from Europeans then that the knowledge of modern-day chocolate produced by USA companies is derived including milk chocolate.

Europeans grew up on these. These Kinder Surprises right here. This is what all European children know first as chocolate, and by all, I mean ALL, every single one of them. In all European countries, and even Canada, children grow up with and are delighted by Kinder Surprises.

The chocolate shell is very thin. Very VERY thin. One super thin layer of milk chocolate and an inner very very thin thin shell of white chocolate. So thin as to hardly be worth it. Thin as an actual egg shell.

Inside the double layer milk chocolate/white chocolate shell is a yellow capsule. Inside the capsule is a toy. Sometimes the toy must be assembled. They used to assemble into something larger than the capsule they came in, which was amazing. Like a pop-up book but even better. All the toys I've opened recently are incredibly stupid and they just pissed me off because they made me feel cheated. First by bad chocolate because now I know better, and secondly with an unimaginative toy. But the toys used to be great and sometimes they still are, it's just that I never seem to get the good ones. There are series of toys. The toys are actually collected. Search [kinder surprise +toys] then view images to see immediately what I'm on about. I don't want to open one of these things right now just to show you, it's not worth ruining the anticipation for somebody else. I'd rather give them all away intact to children or to people who will give them to children. Like I said, the chocolate is gross but kids don't know that. Unless you're a little kid, they have nothing to offer. Still, adults who grew up with them feel an abiding fondness no matter how disappointing the toys have become.

Now I'm going to harshen the happy discussion. See? That up there ↑ was happy, this down here ↓ is harsh.

The joy and the wonder and the playfulness and the satisfaction that all European children enjoy is not available to American children. Why?

Because the American government banned Kinder Surprises from import, that's why.

So here we are then  face-to-face with the sheer banality that characterizes governmental bureaucratic mindset of any country. Somewhere within a department, a ministry, at some time, unknown and probably unknowable because anonymity and unaccountability are the hallmarks of the government functionary, somebody, some unknown unelected faceless apparatchik denied ALL US children access to what everybody else in the whole world gets to have freely, and banned for the rest of history into eternity, because in their overarching wisdom they know so much better than American parents can possibly know, that the toys inside the capsules are too easily swallowed by children and very likely to be swallowed too due to your inferior parenting supervision, a likelihood so obvious and powerful that your freedom of exchange must be curtailed. And it is all so easily avoided by simply banning them. BANG! Banned. An entire market shut out just like that.

You think you live in a free country. Hah! You can't even get a Kinder Surprise because you're too stupid to handle them properly. I am not trying to be offensive here. I am in fact deeply and gravely offended myself. Absurdly, I had to buy these Kinder Surprises on the black market just because my own government set up barriers to prevent us having them.

You hear that? They are illegal! Come and get me, you bastards! I'm over here distributing illegal prohibited contraband to unsuspecting children. BWAAAA Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha

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