The Old Rugged (tasty) Cross

A few years into freelancing, I have to say I don’t miss meetings. But I’d have paid real money to sit in on the one where some marketing person made a pitch for an item I saw in the grocery store yesterday:

Just in time for Easter: chocolate crosses.

As the late George Carlin might have asked: What, no chocolate electric chairs?

I did some Googling, and apparently these treats have been on the market for a couple of years. But since I don’t buy Easter goodies, I missed this breakthrough.

Somewhere, sometime in the not-so-distant past, a confident person stood up in a conference room, flicked on a PowerPoint presentation and said: “Look, we’re getting our asses kicked on the hollow bunnies. Jelly beans have not been the same since the Reagan years. The animal-rights people think the marshmallow chicks are disrespectful. We’ve got to think outside the box, dudes.”

Maybe they kicked around an Easter-season idea of a big chocolate stone that could be rolled away to reveal…well, nothing. Okay, forget that one.

(This whole thing reminded me of a headline written by a fellow newsroom occupant in New Hampshire years ago. Two schools, Bishop Brady High School and Calvary Christian faced off in some game, football probably. When Bishop Brady trounced its opponent, the sports copy editor couldn’t resist: “Bishop Brady Climbs Calvary.” It got yanked after one edition and he edited nothing but box scores for a long time.)

But, hey, it’s possible that the idea of selling confectionery torture devices isn’t all bad. Maybe it means people are lightening up about religious matters, hardly a bad thing for the world, right?

Maybe we should all pitch in and go buy these things. It’s really not going to look good when any unsold crosses go on sale for half-off the day after Easter.