Gawky Pocky

Co-worker Jen, one of my favorite people in the office and a fellow suburban Massachusetts Taiwanese-American (though my first-generation-ness makes me far more fobby than she is), just turned down my offer of a Pocky stick.  A Men's Pocky stick at that.  (For the unawares, Men's Pocky is covered in dark chocolate instead of the regular milk and far superior to original Pocky, just as Men are far more superior than the rest of the world.) 

"I don't know why," she said, "but a chocolate covered pretzel stick just doesn't appeal to me. 

"But it's on a stick!"

"Tell you the truth, I actually prefer the American chocolate-covered pretzels."

"Because it's so salty?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Pocky is not an inferior pretzel.  Pocky is fine.  It is slender.  It is Asian childhood, well-known secret, and homesickness relieved.  This rejection ranks up there with other food-related tragedies such as the Vegetarian Revelation of the Band Man: Not as devastating as the Vegetarian Revelation of Ira Glass (second only in conversion heart breaks to Lenny), but certainly far worse than Day Thorne Serves Raspberry Pancakes instead of the Banana Chocolate Advertised, an event which caused me to be despondent all morning, comforted only by those fluffy, freshly made raspberry chocolate chip pancakes from Thorne.  God, I miss a good Thorne breakfast.