Unless you reside beneath large deposits of granite or perhaps are a subscriber to Us magazine, you are probably aware of the scourge of fanatical evil that everybody is coalitioning about these days.  No, I am not referring to the menace of NFL players loose on our public streets; this problem is much more malevolent and has even our legislative and executive branches grafted into a single trunk of governmental topiary oneness in an endeavor to disrupt and destroy perhaps the single greatest threat to our American well-being:  the bake sale.

I noticed this subtle cultural change when Thing 2 recently brought home her annual choir fundraising product.  Instead of the box of assorted and enchanting selection of chocolate candy-bars upon which I tend to invest my annual September salary, she thrust into my hand something called an Entertainment Book, which is in fact not the least bit entertaining and tastes nothing like the gooey caloric goodness to which I had grown accustomed to consuming as part of my regular fall weight-gain program.  And, as one who depends upon the sweet gleanings of the cacao for addiction appeasement as well as a monthly medicinal mood modifier, The Queen Mother was less than pleased.

“What sort of heathen witchcraft is this?!” is an approximate semblance of the exclamation made as the book took flight.  Sans expletives, of course.

Then the doorbell rings and it’s the neighbor girls raising their own grade-school funds.  Yes!  A silent tension fills the room.  The Obesity Gods in Heavy were smiling on our sugar-free abode and bringing tantalizing sweetmeats right to our door!  Thank you, Obesity Gods!

Imagine our horror as we opened the catalogue only to find…wrapping paper!  And candles!  And greeting cards!  We couldn’t even get a copy of the movie “Chocolat.”   Not that we wanted one.  Be that as it may, neighbors up to seven blocks away stepped out on their porch to investigate the anguishing confectionless screams.

Evidently candy bars violate the new federal snack regulations that are a part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, an act designed to create hunger-free kids by weaning them off their addiction to food.  (Read a related post here.)  (Read an unrelated post here.)  The act reads that only foods deemed ‘healthy’ by some comb-over guy wearing a short-sleeved white shirt in Bethesda are to be allowed in our public schools—to the exclusion of selling home-made baked goods for purposes of raising funds for school-related things that we don’t really need but are convinced that we do such as tubas and cheerleaders.

And so traditional bake sales that have successfully raised millions across the nation for the past infinity are banned on school grounds because the federal government (known in France as ‘au pair’) has determined that consumption of something tasty violates the law’s lunch standards,  which currently consists of four ounces of tofu and a piece of kale.  Haha!  Just kidding.  It’s actually because home-made baked goods are out of control and are a menace to public safety.  Nutritional information is unavailable and they can unknowingly contain such dangerous substances as sugar or gluten or peanuts or pot.  Haha!  Just kidding.  Pot is okay.  But lactose isn’t.  Even some of the most tolerant of inclusive students cannot tolerate lactose.  In any case, grandma’s cream cheese cupcakes are contraband and the Girl Scouts have been forced underground.  We are thinking of turning our basement into a deepfreeze and stocking it with Thin Mints.  When the end comes, we want to be ready.

Such federal food-control powers are of course much like that of bans, bailouts and birth control in that they are enumerated in Article Never of the Constitution and has our local Danish students talking discrimination lawsuit as they are no longer allowed to step foot in the cafeteria.  And with lunchtime food waste at an all-time high, this blog, always one to serve the general welfare in seeking solutions to manufactured crises just such as this, offers a couple of ideas that are worthy of the twelve minutes I have recently spent on them.

The first is perhaps too radical for sensitive ears in that it suggests in lieu of creating restrictions on public food choices, the federal government stick to things that it is good at such as… um… hmmm… subsidies and… um… knee-jerk reactions to poling data and… um… hmmm… more, larger subsidies.

Or… How about if we put warning labels on the tasty treats being sold?  The surgeon general loves warning labels and they have been entirely successful in getting smokers into the highest levels of government.  A good one might be

WARNING: The federal government has determined that you are too stupid to not eat this product as your entire diet.

or

WARNING: This product combined with your lethargic addiction to your various media screens may cause gross and unreasonable heinie expansion such that your eventual twin bulbous exercise-ball buttocks will be too bounteous to join the military and be sent to ebola-infested regions or entangled in Middle-Eastern civil wars.

Just some ideas, but you can tell these solutions are laden with genius.  I’m pretty sure our cheerleaders will have new tubas in no time.