01 November, 2009

Existential angst is hard to come by when you're eating Chocolate Squares

I'm not usually one to advertise brands, but some products need to be praised, and one such product is Mornflake Chocolate Squares. They're sold in Bome Hargains a.k.a Homie B, and they are lush little pillows filled with chocolatey goodness. It's hard to place the experience of eating them, or indeed a stack of warm buttered toast, in the same universe as some university literature.
One of the set texts for my course is a Brazilian feminist's book of short stories in which the protagonists, unenlightened in the ways of Home Bargains, undergo some mundane experience (seeing a blind man chewing gum... seeing an old man cry into his meat...etc) which somehow triggers in them an epiphany of the meaningless, repressive nature of gender roles and society, leading them into a pit of existential angst.

It's a bit grim.



But let's be honest, you can't be edgy or arty or whatever and also be positive, at least, non-ironically. Most of the writers you study at Uni seem to be the type who sit on a park bench for hours gazing longingly at the stars, pondering the pointlessness of it all -" Misery misery misery angst hate angst misery SQUIRREL misery misery DIRTY PIGEONS!!!!"
But I digress. If any of you out there build a time machine, just make sure you take back some good cereal with you. It might just make the world a happier place.

4 comments:

  1. I love this more than words can describe

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  2. Well, I've never had that brand of cereal, but Quaker Cinnamon Oatmeal Squares are, as they say, "da bomb."

    Also, don't you just hate how they only pick bleak existential stuff, and not even the fun bleak existential stuff with a sense of humor... I think I've read a couple stories by the woman you mention. I recall one where a lady watches people eat at a restaurant, and you think something would happen, but it never does.

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  3. I need some of those. Are they anything like Choco Pillows or Frosties Grrrr!?

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  4. I haven't sampled said brand, but I have been going in hard on the 'Nougat Pillows' or 'Nougat Bits'(available from LIDL) for years. They are 'A- Game'.

    Now Kelloggs have cottoned on to these little delights and have brought us 'Krave', which are the same thing, but not as good.

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