2005-04-29 - 10:59 a.m.

This morning on my way to the subway there was a shabby old woman yelling, “One dollar for a box of raisins” and there in her grubby plastic bag were indeed little red boxes of Sunmaid raisins.
This made me smile, not because it is more original than the kids that get on the subway and give the monotone speech, “I am not selling M&Ms for no basketball club but to have some money in my pocket to keep me out of trouble…” but because who would buy raisins off the street?
When my sister and I were little, my parents had strong beliefs that children should not be exposed to sugary foods. In retrospect, I think it was not because they lacked nutritional value but for their own sanity since we were so high strung, however, at the time we felt this borderlined on child abuse. When other children were enjoying a can of coke we were handed fruit juice or herbal tea*. Our lunch boxes always contained very healthful, nutritious foods. We never had the Wonder Bread peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, no ours were always on 50 grain loaf that had the taste and consistency of burlap. Did we get a bag of Fritos or popcorn, no we got carrot or celery sticks and you know there was never a Twinkie or HoHo in our lunchbox… we had the unmistakable red box of Sunmaid raisins. There were protests staged at the grocery store, there was begging, whining even but never would she relent and allow us the illicit cookies. We bargained that we would not complain about the balls of twine we got the rest of the week if only she would let us have some cookies on Fridays. I think I even offered to pay for them myself with my allowance. But no, there were to be no cookies. Until in a moment of weakness my mom succumbed to the constant whine of my sister and I (and maybe the time we sang we shall overcome) and she placed a box of cookies in the cart. Did we get Chips Ahoy? No, we got the craptacular Fig Newton, basically a really big raisin with a soggy cookie wrapped around it. Still a small battle was won so when we came back to the bargaining table the next week perhaps we could negotiate a Pecan Sandie.
That Monday afternoon I opened my lunchbox with great excitement and anticipation I mentally played out the order that it would all be eaten. First the sandwich, then the celery sticks then the cookies… wait. What is this? There in my little ziploc baggie was one sad Fig Newton and a half. I searched my lunchbox hoping that maybe it had fallen out, but no I only had one and a half cookies. I stomped over to my sister’s lunch table only to find that she held the matching half of my cookie and a matching look of disbelief.
Years later I was recounting that story at a backyard BBQ and I finally asked my mom what that was about. She claims ignorance, she doesn’t remember doing that. Funny that. It scarred my sister and me for life.
*Unless it was a field trip with the magic words “brown bag lunch”, then for just this once, we were allowed to have a soda. Oh, this was a very serious matter, one that could not be taken lightly. There were so many choices; it was like choosing your own name. Did I want the cola or the uncola? Should I go out on a limb and get the cream soda or the red pop? Too many choices! I felt my head would explode. After laboring over the choices I would hesitantly hand over the can to my mom… questioning all the way home whether I had made the right choice. If I hadn’t then I missed an opportunity and would have to wait until the next field trip to right my wrong. Once home I would carefully wrap it in layers of tinfoil, because everyone knows that tinfoil will keep it cold. I would carefully and clearly print my name on it so no one else in the house would mistake it as fair game. That was MY soda. I would prowl to the kitchen middle of the night to run surveillance making sure that no one had consumed it in my slumber. That would have been a serious offense.
The next morning it was carefully placed in the brown bag along with my sandwich, celery and Fig Newtons. For years I enjoyed the ritual of choosing my soda. That is until the invention of the juice box. Damn Capri Sun with their wholesome goodness conveniently packaged for travel. My parents bought into this concept like they owned stock. We had cases and cases of the stuff piled up in the basement in fact, I would not be surprised if there are a few forgotten cases hidden in the shadowy corners under the stairs. But as we grew up the restrictions loosened, I became a diet coke head and my dad cannot make it threw the day without some kind of doughnut, sticky bun or danish. Sugar (artificial or otherwise) has become the monkey on our backs.

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