On Popsicles

After one of my regular popsicle based meals, it recently occurred to me that the standard popsicle box now only contains *gasp* three flavors! grape, orange, & red [I'll go ahead and assume it is cherry, though I think they have been lying to me all these years and it is really some hybrid raspberry flavor]. Interestingly, the packaging shows four popsicles on the front, with the dubious red flavored popsicle receiving double billing ...is this a clever advertising trick to create the illusion of additional flavor variety where none exists? I'll leave that question to be answered by you, faithful readers, or perhaps to be revisited in future popsicle oriented postings.

My question on this day is, what happened to the two remaining popsicle flavors of my youth, banana and brown? Is it possible that some sales representative, looking to make a name for himself, and after studying the popsicle eating behavior of millions, finally make a bold decision and swiftly eradicate these flavors? Did someone perhaps tell him of the millions of near empty popsicle boxes, left with only these two flavors [because no one really liked them anyhow] sitting in ice boxes across the country? Did they even go so far as to tell him off the cases of eager children opening multiple popsicle boxes, thus violating the universal law "you can't open the new box until you finish the last one"?

How could this popsicle zorro truly understand the consequences of his actions? Could he have predicted the loss of the one truly great popsicle based guessing game? [As everyone knows, the great gambit in popsicle selection was, for years, Do I dare go for that dark popsicle, tempting, nay taunting me through its translucent wrapping? Could it be the greatest flavor of them all, grape, or the cruel and now rejected cousin, brown?] For all these unanswered questions, I say good day to you popsicle man, I may not know whether you be friend or fiend, but I do know, I will be watching.

Editors notes: After a tumultuous night of sleeping, it occured to me that I left out the other forsaken flavor of popsicle, Green. The truth is I don't really have any first hand knowledge of that mysterious popsicle because Sam inhaled all of those.