Yorkie: It's Not For Girls.
One year when the child was young -- about 3, I think -- we were living in England when Easter came, and so the Easter Bunny brought the child an English Chocolate Easter Egg instead of the usual American Chocolate Easter Bunny. (Also, the Easter bunny, who was purchasing her supplies at the Sainsbury's in Cambridge, had to use brown eggs for the egg hunt, which came out in pretty, but unusual, colors. It was fun.)
And so every year since then, the Easter Bunny, even now that the child understands it's Mama, orders an English Chocolate Easter Egg from a British import store online, as a special treat for the child's Easter Basket.
Well, this year Mama was online, and she found a new Easter Egg; she didn't recognize the candy name -- which was "Yorkie" -- but she liked that, being fond of Yorkshire, and so she ordered it, though she could not, given the size of the picture of the Easter Egg, see it very well.
When it arrived, it turned out to say, in very big letters that Mama couldn't possibly have missed, so she doesn't know how that happened, "Yorkie: It's Not For Girls," and also to sport an outline of a human in a dress carrying a purse, in a red circle with a red slash through it.
"Oh, my God!" is what I said. "I gave these people MONEY!"
Turns out that Nestle is trying to capture the male side of the chocolate-eating English market (which is, I gather, believed to be mostly dominated by women having hormonal difficulties) by making a manly hunky candy bar. Women, in TV ads, try to purchase the candy bars but get scared off by fake spiders. Only men can handle this candy. On account of their manliness. And also it's important that men have a manly candy bar, since, as Nestle puts it, "in today’s society, there aren’t many things that a man can look at and say that’s for him." Well, they can be proud of the Yorkie candy bar, I'll tell you. Also the Easter Egg packaging, which is even more spectacular.
I put the thing in the child's Easter basket anyway, since there it was, and I figured it could be a Teaching Opportunity. Oh, was I right.
The child was appalled, I take it, since, although he laughed and laughed about it, as we all were laughing at it all Easter, he took a pen and tried to cross out the "not for girls" part. Good kid. He gave one of the included candy bars, AND the box, to the beloved friend, who had come for Easter dinner, and who dragged the whole thing off to her Literary Theory classes. The Literary Theory classes mostly wanted to know why Dr. Brannen had bought misogynist candy.
Why, indeed.
I think the beloved friend told them it's cause I'm a snob -- that's a fair cop, really; I don't think I can deny it.
(I now recall that there was another Easter, when the child was about 5, when the Bunny had to visit him in Albuquerque, and since the Bunny had flown in just before Easter, the Bunny had to go down to the Walgreens and purchase the last remaining Easter Basket, which contained, besides some chocolate, a plastic well-armed police squad, complete with bomb-sniffing dog, a set which I then referred to for the rest of the weekend as "the holy SWAT team of the resurrection." The basket did NOT say "it's not for girls." It didn't have to. I see a pattern here. Next year, I'm telling you, the Bunny's buying THE girliest Easter Egg it can find.)
The whole incident's made us a bit touchy around here, though, as you can imagine.
So it's disturbing to realize that the favorite toy of the female kitten is a string of shiny beads, since she's addicted to bling, whereas the male kitten prefers objects bigger than himself,which he likes to drag up the stairs. Yoga blocks. They're not for girls.
And so every year since then, the Easter Bunny, even now that the child understands it's Mama, orders an English Chocolate Easter Egg from a British import store online, as a special treat for the child's Easter Basket.
Well, this year Mama was online, and she found a new Easter Egg; she didn't recognize the candy name -- which was "Yorkie" -- but she liked that, being fond of Yorkshire, and so she ordered it, though she could not, given the size of the picture of the Easter Egg, see it very well.
When it arrived, it turned out to say, in very big letters that Mama couldn't possibly have missed, so she doesn't know how that happened, "Yorkie: It's Not For Girls," and also to sport an outline of a human in a dress carrying a purse, in a red circle with a red slash through it.
"Oh, my God!" is what I said. "I gave these people MONEY!"
Turns out that Nestle is trying to capture the male side of the chocolate-eating English market (which is, I gather, believed to be mostly dominated by women having hormonal difficulties) by making a manly hunky candy bar. Women, in TV ads, try to purchase the candy bars but get scared off by fake spiders. Only men can handle this candy. On account of their manliness. And also it's important that men have a manly candy bar, since, as Nestle puts it, "in today’s society, there aren’t many things that a man can look at and say that’s for him." Well, they can be proud of the Yorkie candy bar, I'll tell you. Also the Easter Egg packaging, which is even more spectacular.
I put the thing in the child's Easter basket anyway, since there it was, and I figured it could be a Teaching Opportunity. Oh, was I right.
The child was appalled, I take it, since, although he laughed and laughed about it, as we all were laughing at it all Easter, he took a pen and tried to cross out the "not for girls" part. Good kid. He gave one of the included candy bars, AND the box, to the beloved friend, who had come for Easter dinner, and who dragged the whole thing off to her Literary Theory classes. The Literary Theory classes mostly wanted to know why Dr. Brannen had bought misogynist candy.
Why, indeed.
I think the beloved friend told them it's cause I'm a snob -- that's a fair cop, really; I don't think I can deny it.
(I now recall that there was another Easter, when the child was about 5, when the Bunny had to visit him in Albuquerque, and since the Bunny had flown in just before Easter, the Bunny had to go down to the Walgreens and purchase the last remaining Easter Basket, which contained, besides some chocolate, a plastic well-armed police squad, complete with bomb-sniffing dog, a set which I then referred to for the rest of the weekend as "the holy SWAT team of the resurrection." The basket did NOT say "it's not for girls." It didn't have to. I see a pattern here. Next year, I'm telling you, the Bunny's buying THE girliest Easter Egg it can find.)
The whole incident's made us a bit touchy around here, though, as you can imagine.
So it's disturbing to realize that the favorite toy of the female kitten is a string of shiny beads, since she's addicted to bling, whereas the male kitten prefers objects bigger than himself,which he likes to drag up the stairs. Yoga blocks. They're not for girls.
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