The most amazing thing happened to me the other day.  You know how you’ll be doing your laundry and you’ll find $20 you didn’t know you had in a pocket?  Well, it was kind of like that, but instead of finding $20 in my pocket, I found Bagel Bites in my freezer!  I have been trying (and failing) to be better at cooking for myself, but I’ve been so busy lately, my pantry and refrigerator are wastelands.  So, when I found these Bagel Bites (acquired in a fit of nostalgia for a girls’-night-in when my friend Susan was visiting), it was like manna from heaven.  And tonight, that manna is what I ate for dinner.

I wouldn’t immediately think of food as being a part of pop culture, but it totally is, especially if you’re a kid.  I mean, you have snacks and cola wars (Pepsi!), not to mention what goes into school lunches.  My elementary school and junior high didn’t have hot lunch, so it was all about what chips you brought and whether your mom got you Gushers or not (mine almost never did).  Those of you who had hot lunch will have to back The Baby-sitters Club up on this (as that’s where all my junior high hot lunch knowledge comes from), but bringing your own lunch under those circumstances was extremely uncool.  Then for your after-school activities, Bagel Bites and Totino’s Pizza Rolls (which we also bought, and consumed, on girls’-night-in) were status symbols.  If you had those when your friends came over, your parents got it.

There was also status attached to Halloween candy, not only in the size of the bars given out, but the quality of candy.  Tootsie Rolls are, to some, a Halloween classic.  To me, they are disgusting and a dime a dozen.  People who give out Tootsie Rolls on Halloween have no vision.  Same goes for Dum-Dums and Smarties.  You’d probably think I’d be all about full size candy bars, but they’re a little too ostentatious for my liking.  I don’t need to know you can afford to buy Hershey bars in bulk from Sam’s Club.  Just give me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and I’m happy.  The best way to go, in my opinion, is the assortment of Hershey’s Fun-Size candy bars.  We can all agree that Fun-Size is a bit of a misnomer, but still, they are the perfect Halloween candy.  And that’s what I buy.  Even though I live in an apartment building in Brooklyn.  And in four Halloweens living here, I’ve never had a trick-or-treater.  But I buy it anyway.  Just in case.  Because I know what’s up.