As a mildly indulgent complement to the tastefully greasy chicken tenders I was going to bring home,
I decided to acquire some Pirates’ Booty.
They’re a crispy snack that leaves you feeling not very indulgent. They’re also great for when you’re craving vegetables but don’t feel like microwaving the broccoli in the refrigerator.
They used to say “Pirates’ Booty: Veggie”, didn’t they? And around 7 or more years before that, the bags were only marked “Veggie Booty”, but there was a cool pirate ship.
But now. they seem to have taken a third option. The title is Pirates’ Booty, and the subtitle is Veggie Booty. Hence, Pirates’ Booty: Veggie Booty. Sounds like a title for a sequel.
I could only imagine the deliciously bland goings on at the marketing department of Pirate Brands. Surely they were discussing the way that people poked fun at the name “Veggie Booty” some time ago when they first renamed the product,
and that the decision to make the name more dignified, was being revealed to possibly not have a positive effect on sales. Perhaps marrying “veggie” to “booty” was something just worth trying again, being freakishly poetic compared to Pirates’ Booty: Veggie.
There must have been something enticingly lame about “Veggie Booty” that brought some marketability to the barely fatty, green-powdery snack food so many health food wannabes wanted with their sandwiches.
These people, who must have been trying to determine what course of action would result in the highest yield of sales, with only ambiguous public feedback to guide them, were surely being engaged by the friction of purpose and result.
They could hardly tell what made a product endearingly weird, or contemptibly lame.
By putting Pirates’ Booty as a subtitle, people could smile at the cheekier name, while also being endeared by the more dignified title of the product.
It also makes more sense to a White Cheddar Veggie Booty fan wanting to try another flavor.
I know of someone who doesn’t know that booty means something besides one’s posterior. Fortunately that person has no interest in crispy snacks that are healthy- to them, if it’s like a chip, it may as well have all the fattiness and lack of fiber it could ever have.
They used to show the snack itself on the bag for a while. I know that when I first bought some Pirates’ Booty, I was taking quite the gamble. But maybe they took it away, because it’s really not that appetizing looking of a snack. Maybe not showing the puffs was part of the weird charm of Robert’s American Gourmet.
One time, when I was at work, someone asked me if that was indeed “Pirate Booty” in my mixed bag of snacks. I responded very slowly that it was. I wanted to give a hint, I was very ready to reflect away any booty jokes, and leave that up to anyone else besides me.
This person really liked McDonald’s and really caught me off my game or trying to be as massively un-lewd as possible AT WORK. Time managed to slow down a little.
This is why I never carry Naked juice in public. Just in case someone wants to cascade the types of discussions that lead to someone accusing someone else of talking about their buttcheeks.
But I suppose this is the cost of not being addicted to Cheez Doodles,
or rather, wanting to take a break from corn chips without flavored powder.
Yar harr, fiddle dee dee,
from awkwardness we’ll never be free.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 