"Face front and clam up. Good. Now I can tell you that tomorrow we are invited to take a field trip to The Crinkle Crankle Bakery," Ms. Gwen handed out permission slips to her fifth grade class. "Be sure to bring these back signed by whoever has custodial rights over you or you'll squander 6.64 hours within these asbestos walls gluing dry pasta on picture frames."
B-r-i-i-n-g, rang the lunch bell. At the cafeteria children excitedly traded food. The "you're alone on an island and you can have only one..." Holy Grail of desserts with even its household name being a mouthful was a Zoobaybay -- an artificially flavored, marshmallow creme filled, candy coated, plastic wrapped, mass-produced cake that had the longest shelf life of any snack. The comforting childhood treats were made at a local factory and rumors flew around the table how the trademarked refined sugar snack logs could survive a nuclear blast and about the old hermit who owned the company. Johnny always lost at bartering and ended up with a stack of soggy PB and J sandwiches. Sloan was usually a ruthless negotiator, but today he simply watched with a grin on his face. When the commotion stopped he pulled out his lunch box.
"Snore. Okay losers, check out what I got at Happyconsumer," Sloan bragged. The boy carefully lifted a gold foil wrapped cuboid embossed with letters that read: "The Crinkle Crankle Bakery," and untied twine from around the package to reveal a scrumptious cake enrobed with creamy rainbow chip icing that was an exquisite work of pastry perfection. Kids went ape offering handfuls of Zoobaybays in exchange. "Jelly much?" Sloan laughed. "Look at it! Look at it! Look at it! Don't look at it!"
