Dear Diary …
I fight the good fight. I’m a watchdog against The Man. My eyes are always in focus … seeking out the ignorance and injustices of the world. And the scams. And I have unearthed a new one of those … Box Tops.
Before I had children … I had never heard of box tops. If you asked me what they were, I would’ve assumed they were … well … the tops of boxes where you open the box to get stuff out. That’s a box top, right?
Oh how wrong I was about that. Because box tops is actually a nationally organized crime syndicate meant to scam all of us.
Granted, they don’t ACT like a nationally organized crime syndicate. You go to their website, and they say things like “we help children!” Just clip your box tops, give them to your kid, who brings them to school, and your school gets money. Hooray box tops! This, my friends, is where the scam starts.
You see Diary … I am a food snob.
I used to try to deny it in the past …
“I’m not a food snob … I just like good food!”
But then I realized, that’s what exactly made me a food snob. And I’m OK with it. And I’m OK with the fact that a lot of people like to eat pre-processed beef stew in a can. I think it’s gross. You think it’s yummy. To each his own, but this food snob sticks his nose in the air at the thought of things like that.
Problem is … lots of those foods have box tops. Which wouldn’t be a problem for me if not for the fact that my school wants as many box tops as they can get … so they can get as much money as possible. So they tell kids … like my daughter … If you bring us five box tops a week, you get popcorn on Fridays! And if you don’t … well all your friends get popcorn … but not you … because you didn’t bring in an box tops.
Now you see how I’m affected by this because I have to get box tops for my daughter, or she’s the loser in the corner without any popcorn. But the problem, of course, is that’s in direct conflict with food snob me.
Cuz you know what has box tops? Hamburger helper. You know what doesn’t? The locally-sourced grass-fed goat leg that I bought at the Farmer’s Market and made for Sunday dinner. You can flip that thing over as many times as you want, there’s not a single box top on it.
Big scam these box tops. They’re all in cahoots! Trying to make me buy $10 in products that I don’t want, just so my kid can have 3 cents of popcorn. Oh heck no!
So you know what I do? I scam the system back.
Cuz you know what else has box tops? Lots and lots of box tops? EBay!
Here’s a riddle … What’s got two thumbs and a giant bag of box tops now for $10?
This guy!
Popcorn party ALL … YEAR … LONG!
Take that box tops!
I believe the score is now …
Zack Jackson: One
You: Zero
Till next time Diary, I say goodbye.