Grape Expectations

Ladies and mengentles, I would like to take a minute to address one of the greatest hoaxes of modern society; something that has occurred right under our very noses with nary a second guess from our perhaps overly-passive society. I'm speaking (obviously) of grape-flavored items that in fact do not taste like grape. Think about it - popsicles, Skittles, jelly beans, freakin' jelly (!!!) - all claiming to be grape-tasting, while you know as damn well as I do that you've never eaten a grape that tastes anything like a grape Skittle. Where are they getting these mystery "flavor grapes"? Is there a magic winery somewhere that harvests solid purple grapes for artificial flavoring and consumption? At this point, that's as good of a guess as any. Better than yours, you didn't even try!

The strange thing is, through this engraining of grape flavor from the liberal media on the public, I do believe that I have developed a fondness for "grape-flavored" items that far surpasses the flavor of actual grapes. And I'm sure you'd agree. Who doesn't open a box of Popsicle brand popsicles and first look for the one which sort of looks purple through the solid white plastic wrap? Or when given the option, select a refreshing grape slush puppy from the vast array of seemingly endless flavor selections at our local Astoria street fair? Yes, it's sad, but we as a society have been programmed so deeply to just roll with this fake grape flavor, that we've stopped asking questions, walking this earth blindly accepting the fact that grape flavored items have nothing to do with the fruit on which they are based. Not since Apple Jacks has such a fruit-related faux pas swept the nation.

Yes, I did write this with the idea of the title first.