KEY POINTS:
Let it not be so. Let it be nothing but a cruel hoax. Please let it be that between the writing of and the reading of these scant few words of dismay, that it will have been revealed as a terrible hoax - a desperate ploy to drive up sales - or that some misguided PR genius, looking to take our minds off global economic meltdown and Winston Peters, dreamed up the whole awful thing.
Please, let it not be.
Let it not be that the little minty-chocolate rugby balls of delight that are Snifters are gone! Discontinued! Eradicated! For if it is true and Snifters are no longer to be manufactured, a great sadness will have fallen across our land.
My extensive research into this horror announcement seems to confirm the truth of this dire news. The supermarket I visited, looking for my favourite confectionary, was bereft of Snifters. The same went for the two dairies I visited - although one dairy owner did tell me that someone had come in and bought all of his stock and he was hoping to get more in. I fear, however, this may have been an act of misguided compassion - an attempt to give hope to a man clearly in need of a Snifter fix.
It also raised the issue of Snifter-hoarding. That the rumour, having spread like wildfire through the city, has led to a run on Snifters and the creation of secret Snifter stashes.
It will only be a matter of time before the Snifter black market covertly springs into operation. Can't the government or the police step in to secure the supply of Snifters for all, not just a greedy few?
Snifters, for those from another planet or overseas, are the greatest lollies ever invented; even despite their stupid name. Mint, chocolate, crunchy bits, chewy bits, melt-in-your-mouth bits. You could crunch through them like a Snifter-devouring machine or you could let one Snifter roll around your mouth for ages, letting the sensually flavoursome adventure slowly unfold itself around your taste buds. My God, I am salivating right now just at the thought of Snifters.
Do the people at Cadbury not understand what the hell they are doing to the people of New Zealand by depriving us of our Snifter experience? Do they not understand the iconic nature of this sweet in our culture? Do they not understand the flow-on effects their callous, heartless decision will have? I, for one, will find going to the movies much less of an experience without Snifters. They even came in boxes, for heaven's sake, so they didn't rustle and annoy the other movie-goers.
Actually I suspect that the people at Cadbury knew exactly what they were doing when they banned Snifters. Cadbury, you see, is an English company. And Snifters are shaped like rugby balls. And all New Zealanders know that English rugby is the most boring in the world and that we will always whip their asses with our South Pacific flare and pace and passion for the game. And every time an English person sees a Snifter, they are reminded of this fact and it cuts them like a knife, so they took away the offending powerful symbol of the post-colonial, post-British empire world order.
The people at Cadbury - or, as I think of them now, the bastards at Cadbury - who took away our fundamental human rights to Snifters, have struck a grievous blow to the soul of Aotearoa. They might as well have taken a carving knife to the greatest paintings of Colin McCahon or ripped out Kiri's vocal chords or burned every copy of The Bone People in existence, such is the cultural arrogance and insensitivity of this act of war upon our nation.
What next, Cadbury? Is the Pineapple Lump in your sights next? L&P? Okay, I know L&P's not a confectionary, but the point remains the same: you are tampering with something sacred here. A taonga of the people.
Which is why I will not stand for it. I cannot stand by - or sit by, at my computer, typing these words of fury, to be totally accurate - while this desecration of all I hold to be good and true and yummy unfolds before my eyes.
This is why, as of today, I am on strike as the guy who writes the column at the back of Canvas. Not one word from me will grace these pages until our right to our national sweet is returned to Us, the People of New Zealand.
I am not kidding.
