Breathing heavily, a boy drenched head to toe stood before the shop counter, weighing his options. He felt the drenched denim over the pocket where his wallet was securely tucked away. It wasn't full of too much money. He turned around to take a good look at the weather. The sky was full and it was dark but the rains had let up.
He had to make a decision fast.
He turned up and glanced carelessly at the assortment of snack-packets dangling from a rope over the counter. Without really bothering much about what he chose, he chose to buy four packets of Cadbury Bytes.
He had no idea what he had done.
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*The stereotype snack is a clever ploy. It is either too oily or too spicy or both and of course it is marketted by a PepsiCo or Cocal Cola subsidiary. Once you're out of a packet, your throat is so itchy or your tongue is burning that you have to pick up a soft drink. It's good business.
Cadbury Bytes is a slightly different tale.
Not everyone is a sweet tooth and it is quite likely that even the fiercest chocoholic might tire of the persistent bitterness, which is the usual aftertaste of rich chocolate. Downing a whole bar of chocolate, rolling your tongue throughout the whole mouth waiting for the coating of the substance to finally unstick and then wondering if there is something you can do to calm your aroused taste buds is too much of a time-investment for some. For me at least.
I know this sounds like I'm giving a sales pitch. I am.
We've all marvelled at the pure state of bliss that Ferrerro Rocher is and we have also found Perk and Kit-Kat and the lot to be quite disappointing substitutes for the chocolate-snack. I'm not going to tell you Cadbury Bytes can live up to the Rocher brilliance but it works as a good placebo.
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Imagine yourself sitting alone, waiting in a queue at, say, the passport office on a day when the place is not so full of people standing annoyingly close to you. Your token number B31 and the next one in queue is B17.
Imagine yourself sitting on a park bench. You're not alone this time. One of your arms is pleasantly busy fiddling with curly hair while the other is desperately searching for something less mushy to do.
Imagine yourself in a boring lecture hall with a grouchy old man talking on and on about blue-box subsidies from behind a pair of spectacles that make his eyes look disporportionately large.
Imagine yourself in a car, standing outside a movie theater on a rainy evening, waiting, as you always have to do, for your date to show up, self-righteously late.
Imagine yourself in dire need of food, although you're sick of your mess.
All right, stop dreaming. Get yourself a Cadbury Bytes.
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The beauty of Bytes is not in its taste nor in its quality. I'm not calling it an example of perfection that the Snack Food Industry should take a leaf out of. It's nothing spectacular.
But it has a speciality of its own. While most snacks arouse your senses by burning your tongue or sending sharp signals of salty taste, or by making one hell of a racket in your mouth as you chomp on them, generally making you loud and prone to gossipping in the sickliest, most vacant-unoccupied-housewife kind of way, Cadbury Bytes has the uncanny knack of making activity seem irrelevant and even unnecessary.
When one truly wants to pass some time, one wants to do it in a way that will interfere least with the state of stupor that your thoughts and mind has come down to.
That's how Pink Floyd became so famous.
Noisy dancefloors, raucious gossip sessions and glass-shattering nasal renditions are for sissy girls and monkeys and chimps. The real dude relaxes over something that puts him to sleep but only just.
Weed is an option. But I recommend Cadbury Bytes.
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When you have two straight hours of absolutely nothing to do and it seems most likely that at the end of those two hours you will need most of your mental faculty running at optimum efficiency and you also feel the need for a quick snack, take my advice.
Buy a Cadbury Bytes. You have no idea how good it can be for you.
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The boy ran across the street, leapt over his bike and thundered down the street, thinking fast.
He had missed lunch. The WTO-Meet had taken up his entire afternoon. For coffee, he had made it but just about. He had a Financial Management class to attend. Evening had now drawn its dull, rainy cover over the city and he was about to make this day the worst day for her.
No. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts.
He pulled his bike to a side as he neared the park, skidding in the slippery puddle of rainwater. In the distance, he caught sight of her. In the dull gray light, she looked like a spectre on the bench, sort of accentuating the dismal mileu.
Fifteen minutes later, things were different.
But damn it, the Bytes were over!
Crap, now I have to talk mush, thought the guy.
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.