Getting Your Just Desserts

A panel of experts, otherwise known as people with nothing better to do, has issued a statement regarding the taxation and limitation of desserts, using the justification that they are only thinking of the common good. 

There are 45 days for the public to offer a comment.

I, a member of said public, feel privileged to opine.

You asked for it. 

Dear Panel Of Experts,

Leave the dessert menu and me alone. 

As a matter of scientific fact, I am holding in my hand a recent report, a Power Point presentation with lines and charts and graphs that emphatically emphasizes...

Lately, there is not ENOUGH SWEET to go around. 

The report is indisputable because I WROTE IT. 

I do not mind a tour guide, when I am in a foreign land.

I do not mind my doctor SUGGESTING healthy alternatives. 

I do not mind abiding the laws of proper parenting, by setting a good example. 

I do not mind being held accountable for my OWN actions. 

I do not mind hints, suggestions, or even thoughtful, if opposing points of view, as long as it works both ways. 

You talk, I listen.

I talk, YOU listen. 

So listen up. 

Get OUT. 

Get out of my kitchen. 

Move away from the kitchen cabinets, the stove, the dinner table, and back away from the...

Dessert. 

Cakes and Pie. Cookies and Ice Cream. 

Pudding and S’Mores. 

Are you kidding me?

Banish Baked Alaska? Red Velvet Cake?

Buttermilk brownies and cheery pie. Fudge, cheesecake, groan, moan, no no no no...

Cupcakes and funnel cakes, gingerbread, petit fours, bon bons and peanut butter cups...stop stop stop stop...

Pumpkin pie, Bear Claws, Butterscotch pudding, Banana splits...well just split my soul in two. 

This is an international disgrace. 

Poor Baklava, Streudel, Stollen, Panna Cotta, Spumoni, Tortas, Flan and Fairy Bread. Gone...gone...gone...

You have gone too far this time. 

But it is not your fault, because nothing is anyone’s fault anymore. Not as long as there is a STUDY or a REPORT or a PROCLAMATION written by an anonymous faceless source. 

You betcha. I dare ya. I want names. I want the names of all the crabby people who had to sit for long and wearisome hours locked up in a conference room, sipping Starbucks and feeling smug, generating enough tongue twisting legalese to justify using THEIR time to justify spending MY dime to insure THEIR job security.

Hmmmm, they wondered. What can we tax THIS time? I mean really, what’s left for us to regulate, manage and tax? Wait a minute. Just a minute. It’s on the tip of my mocha latte covered tongue...

Dessert. 

Ha!

So the self proclaimed standard setters, replete with robust self-awareness, compiled a garble of efficient measurements encased in well defined brand pyramids, synergistically leveraged their benchmarks without leaving their seats, yet thinking outside the box, leaped with glee over their turn key win-win solutions and then sat back down on their best-in class bottom lines. 

Translation?

We Won’t Let ‘Em Eat Cake

Oops. Too limited a parameter. Let’s widen our focus and think globally. Broaden our consumer, user base. 

No more Sweets For Thee

Salty, Bitter, Sweet and Sour, 

the taste sensations of a life well lived. 

It is said, by me, that as we age that our memories may diminish, but the triggers of our senses fire more strongly. Link us to memories of family and friends and oh the places we did go. The smell of pumpkin pie resting on the counter at Grandma’ house at Thanksgiving. The smashing face-smearing slice of wedding cake, our eyes locked in the memory of our first kiss and the kisses yet to come. The aroma of Toll House cookies, toiling in the kitchen hours before the gathering in the gymnasium, for the Wednesday night Cub Scout meeting. The popsicles at the beach, the S’Mores around the campfire, the pack of red Twizzlers on the seat in the back of the car, on the trip across country, in the family sedan. Butterscotch pudding for the fussy eater finishing off his peas. The Key Lime Pie, the Brown Betty, the Tiramisu, the language of sweet. 

Cheesecake. Ah. Cheesecake. 

All this cake talk makes my heart ache and my sweet tooth sore. 

I believe, I truly do that there is already sweetness in each and every one of you. 

And I accept the premise that an overload of any one of the senses is not good for you. 

As in too much salty language or too many bitter retorts.

Not to mention sour snarling faces. 

I submit to you, members of the panel, that the day you flipped the food pyramid upside down, you felt powerful, just because you could. The question still remains whether you should, just because you could. Maybe, just maybe, you should have a bit more faith in those of us out here beyond the paneled walls, to be responsible, to care for and about each other, and to do good work. 

That gathering for a moment to celebrate our good news, our blessings, the small joys, the pleasure of family and friends, with a bite of dessert, a cookie or two...

Makes life sweet, sweeter, sweetest.

So here’s my idea in a language you might recognize...

Let’s reconceptualize our innovative partnerships, and share a slice of pie. 

Do you want ice cream with that?

Sincerely, 

but I am NOT kidding, 

yours. 

A word of warning...the Cookie Monster and I are VERY close friends.