The beauty of a Hershey’s Kiss used to be its studied simplicity. Unwrapping one wasn’t supposed to be an adventure: You knew you weren’t going for a walk on the wild side. You were in no danger of getting Pineapple Caramel or Lemon Jerky.
To pop one in your mouth was to self-medicate with a small dose of ur-chocolate, vin ordinaire chocolate, the base-line chocolate by which all other chocolates are measured. Have a Kiss, and the urge to kill your boss or berate your partner subsides. The micro-dose of pleasure is, as it has been since Hershey’s Kisses were invented, as predictable as sunrise or Kanye West going bonkers.
Today, though, we live in weird times: People are ordering breakfast at McDonald’s at 5 p.m., and not being laughed at. A mentally challenged orange-skinned narcissist is one party’s leading candidate for president. Matt Damon got stranded on Mars and we decided not to leave him there. In keeping with Hunter S. Thompson’s dictum that when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, the folks at Hershey have decided to bring out a Hershey’s Carrot Cake Kiss for Easter.
Huh? Hershey’s hints that it’s thinking long-term. Tastes can change. People can change. Kisses can change. (Remember when Americans spent Thanksgiving Day with family instead of lining up to be trampled in the doorway of Walmart for the privilege of almost being able to buy a $49 big-screen?) Hershey’s hopes to inaugurate a new marketing-based tradition as secure as Valentine’s Day or Super Bowl Sunday: The long-term plan is to begin nudging Americans to associate Carrot Cake Kisses with spring the way pumpkin spice lattes have become linked to fall. Interest will be reignited. Sales will surely skyrocket!
In other words, what’s one additional abomination, more or less? Out goes the simple dependability of the Kisses brand, to be replaced by a fatuous anything-goes sensibility. Countless hours of office productivity will be lost as workers reaching for an instantaneous pick-me-up instead become mired in hesitation: Is this a real Hershey’s Kiss or one of those unspeakable ersatz newcomers like the Carrot Cake Kiss someone once foisted on me without warning? Am I getting true chocolate or something closer to one of those horrid bottom-scraping quasi-treats like candy corn?
Recriminations will be loud and varied. Americans will lose trust in their colleagues, neighbors and family members. Decreased industrial productivity will lead to a recession. Decreased trust will lead to political instability. Hershey’s, all we want from the Kiss is a cheap little burst of containable joy. Why’d you have to bring about the downfall of the Republic instead?