Why did it always seem that in order for me, as a child, to enjoy the food I was eating it had to have come from some sort of a package perhaps a box or can. Mom could have slaved all day in the kitchen to prepare a nice garlic roast with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables, and yet the irresistible taste of powdered, process cheese sprinkled over soggy noodles and splattered with Heinz ketchup always seemed to have that edge.
             Who needs fresh pasta and homemade meat sauce served with oven backed garlic bread, when you can have animal shaped pasta from a can, already immersed in some sort of orange wanna-be tomato sauce at the press of a button.
             Fruit snacks were a big thing. Coming in all different shapes and sizes, musical instruments, animals even round ones that when you bite into them gushed out fruit juice into your mouth. It seemed appetizing at the time. The best though, still to this day, would have to be the ever famous Fruit Roll Up. Wrapping them around our dirty, little kid fingers made them that much more tasty. Sucking them down till there was nothing left, but still leaving that desirable, artificial fruit flavour on our finger for hours to come. The best part, the crusty leftover pieces imbedded in your nails gave you the taste you could enjoy until the next time you washed your hands. When ever that may have been!
             The trips to the local convenience store always proved to be exciting. "Excuse me sir, what is the most I can buy with this dollar?" we would ask with our little eyes just barely able to see over the counter. That giant stick of frozen juice , the freezee, so big it would cut open the corners of your mouth with its plastic wrapper, as you sucked all of the flavour and colour out of it and were left with a succulent stick of ice to gnaw on, always seemed to be such a bargain for only fifty-five cents.
             How about the lick-a-stick. They were great. Mom loved when we got those.
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