The Classiest Possible Thing

When I was a kid, they made a special, fancy, grown-up Lunchable with special, fancy, grown-up foods in it, like wet, floppy, turkey discs, mustard, and whole-wheat crackers. This was food for mature adults with mature adult palates. These Lunchables had napkins in them. These Lunchables were deluxe. These Lunchables came with an Andes Mint.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Andes Mints, they are dark chocolate pieces with a sliver of creme de menthe in the center. They are the classiest, most grown-up candy imaginable. Adults, who have outgrown the taste for overly sugary desserts, who read chapter books and are allowed to write in pen, adults who vote and drive and order soda at a restaurant--they are the lucky few who can partake of Andes Mints. Due to their hallowed place as a palate-cleansing, breath-freshening treat in the Deluxe Lunchables for Very Important Adults, they cemented themselves as the single most mature, special, luxury food in my mind. Andes Mints were for the jet-setters, the VIPs, real high society folks. They were not for me.

I would legitimately pray to be given an Andes Mint. If I were to be trusted with an Andes Mint, I would be welcomed to the world of culture with open arms, acknowledged as a true sophisticate. Every time my mother or grandmother got one in their Lunchable, I would stare it down, hoping to someday obtain one for myself. Meanwhile, I didn't like mint, and was having a hard time dealing with it on a day-to-day basis.

Mint is in nearly every gum, toothpaste, and dental product.  Mint is the go-to flavor for things to sweeten the breath and things to denote Christmas is in fact on the way.  Mint was everywhere, and everywhere that mint went, my vomit was sure to follow. Just the smell of mint lingering in the bathroom or on someone's breath after a morning brushing of the teeth forces me to gag. When I gag, I vomit. When I vomit, I break the blood vessels in my face and both look and feel miserable. It has been like this since I was a wee tater tot, and it remains this way still. The bright, cool smell of mint will send me sailing straight for the toilets the second it wafts my way. The taste of mint, if I'm unlucky enough to experience it, leaves me feeling something I can only describe as "nauseous in the international space station." In the middle of all this, I never forgot the holy appeal of the Andes Mint.

This brings me to modern day. I'm in college. I'm an opera singer. I've been in performance art pieces at the Guggenheim. I am classy and grown-up as fuck. I am surely qualified to eat Andes Mints. A couple of years ago, at Christmas time, our local Target offered a huge box of Andes Mints in their holiday section. I saw them. I could not resist. I was going to buy those Andes Mints and hop on a one-way train to Cool Grownupsburgh to become the popular, unanimously-elected Mayor. I was going to take control of my own destiny and become a god.

I got the package home and carefully opened the green cellophane wrappings. This was it. I was going to obtain all the sophistication and culture that had once eluded me. I was going to eat an Andes Mint, on my own, as an adult.

Instead of any of that happening, I ate the entire box in one sitting, like a hungry dog with a death-wish that just got into a Whitman's Sampler. I didn't even taste them, really. I just inhaled the whole box like a vacuum set to "suck up all them Andes Mints." I looked at my desk, covered in shiny green wrappers, and felt the first signs of regret. Oh, oh no, I had eaten the whole box. Oh god, I had eaten a whole box of Andes Mints that is not what a Mayor of Cool Grownupsburgh does. That is what a disobedient pet does five minutes before it dies of chocolate poisoning. And then the wave of inescapable nausea hit me. Andes Mints were, after all, mints. I was going to die. These mints were my Icarus Wings. I had gotten too bold, and flown too close to the sun on my quest to become a cultured adult. I had tested fate, and fate was going to win. Andes Mints were going to kill me, and it was all my fault.

I shivered on my floor, waiting to die for a good 20 minutes before getting up and hurling. I certainly learned my lesson. Mint is mint, no matter how glamourous you perceive the package to be. The powers of Andes Mints were clearly too strong for me. You'd think that would be the last time, but no. I still cannot resist an Andes Mint. I especially cannot resist eating 20 or so Andes Mints at a time, getting hideously ill, and rolling around on the floor wishing for death while my sister looks on and says "you ate the whole box again." Every time I see one, whether tucked in with the check at a restaurant or in the holiday section at target, I remember that they are the divine treat, the exalted confection suitable only for the most mature adults, those who dine on Deluxe Lunchables.

I want a Deluxe Lunchable life. I want Andes Mints, even if they kill me.