Thursday, September 25, 2014

Pop-Tarts, The End is in Sight

Underground Storage Facility, Yucca Mountain
This week, Pop-Tarts turns 50.  Yep, fifty years ago, Pop-Tarts were introduced for the first time to the consuming public.  The shocking news is, soon there will be no more.

This has been a closely-guarded secret until now, but the fact is, the original batch of Pop-Tarts produced in 1964 was the only one ever made.  Owing to a misplaced decimal in the original invoice, Kellogg's manufactured over a trillion Pop-Tarts in one year.  The Pop-Tart factory has since been shuttered and demolished, and the accountant responsible for the error disappeared soon after the fiasco.  His body has never been found.

The excess Pop-Tarts have since been stored deep under the Yucca Mountain in Arizona, along with depleted Uranium isotopes and 50,000 back issues of George Magazine.  Ever since, Kellogg's has been extracting them on an as-needed basis for retail sale.  Using special high-powered syringes, the original fillings have been replaced with new flavors from Disney Princess Jewelberry to Guava Mango.

The executives at Kellogg's calculated that the supply of Pop-Tarts would last well past the year 2214, when a secret scientific report reveals that the sun will explode engulfing the inner planets and destroying all life except for earth's billionaires and their chosen concubines, who will escape and a fusion-powered spacecraft.  Their confidence was further boosted by critical reception, which ranged from "nauseous," to "not recommended for eating purposes."

Unfortunately, no one anticipated the public's voracious appetite for processed breakfast treats.  Moreover, Pop-Tart consumption was further fueled by a packaging snafu.  Each Pop-Tart, a single serving, is wrapped in a foil sleeve with one other Pop-Tart.  This means that the typical consumer, having opened the foil, will eat both Pop-Tarts, fearing spoilage of the remaining.  (This fear is unfounded: Pop-Tarts are impervious to spoilage.)  There being two foil containers in the typical box, the other Pop-Tart pair rattles in the box like an orphan until the consumer, deluding himself that he is saving shelf-space in his cabinet, the eats the other pair as well.  Thus, a typical American consumer eats four times as many Pop-Tarts as the wildest and most optimistic forecast estimated.

Think about the last Pop-Tart you had.  Was there anything about it that suggested it was not fifty years old?  Would you have applied any adjective to it such as "fresh?"  That's because every Pop-Tart you've ever eaten was made in the middle of the last century.

And now they are running out forever.

Whether this is good news or bad, is for you to tell.