Here is the latest indictment of lazy mass consumerism: Custom s’more-ready marshmallows

No one asked for this, Kraft. No one.

I’ve been out of town for the past week for a lakeside vacation, and while engaging in one of the most American of all vacation pastimes, I discovered another example of the kind of crass, lowest-common-denominator marketing that seems to celebrate America’s cultural race to the bottom.

(Also, this will undoubtedly be the Most Important Blog Post I ever write.)

While gathering the materials one night to build a fire and make s’mores for my boys, I found a bag of “StackerMallows,” pictured above. These are essentially two-dimensional marshmallows, manufactured flat for supposed ease of stacking in a s’more. Because, you know … traditional marshmallows are … uh … kind of tough to smoosh inside a graham cracker and piece of chocolate? (See #FirstWorldProblems).

Except, they’re terrible things to try and roast over a fire, too thin and weirdly proportioned to stay on a skewer once the heat starts to melt the thing, and so what you’re left with is an underdone, barely warm marshmallow, no brown or burnt spots possible. And so the user is left wondering about the problem these were supposed to address.

Anyway, to keep this post from sinking completely into navel-gazing territory, I Googled StackerMallows, and found this complimentary review from 2011 (they’ve seriously been around that long?). The author writes that the package instructions recommend microwaving the marshmallows before including in the s’more. Which makes me wonder two things:

1. Who reads the instructions on marshmallow bags?
2. More importantly, who the fuck microwaves marshmallows to make s’mores? I mean, I guess I could see it if the kids were crying because it started raining and you already promised them s’mores over a fire, but … oh for fuck’s sake, no!

Proof that absolutely nothing is sacred. And also, Merica.