Remember that 10-year-old can of Bubble Gum Hi-C? Well, last night we trekked back to the infamous deli that sold it, in the hopes that we'd find more obsolete oddities. In the pretty recent past, I've seen bags of Spinkled Chips Ahoy! that haven't been produced in years, not to mention six-packs of Coke using a much older logo.
Unfortunately, the well was pretty dry -- they hadn't "cleaned up" by any stretch; it was still filthy beyond compare with dusty stock boxes littering the floor to the point where some aisles were almost inaccessible. Pretty bad trip, actually -- one of my old high school friends popped in, and true to form, I took it as permission to duck into the store's stock room for five minutes until he left. By the time I came out and assured the woman that I hadn't been kidnapped or stabbed, the clerk noticed all the suspicious behavior and started treating us like we actually had the intentions of stealing any of the pitifully expired crap on his shelves. To give you an idea of what we're dealing with, this is the kind of place that still has teaser posters for Zima up in prominent spots, plus a Slush Puppy machine currently being used as a massive ashtray, which is odd, since nobody's supposed to be smoking in there. In any event, we didn't leave totally empty-handed...
OLD JELL-O. Watermelon and Pineapple, complete with references to their old "Jigglers" campaign. Completing the circle of insanity, one package cost 59 cents, the other 1.19. Once again, the clerk paid little attention to the problems that could potentially surface when selling customers edibles that haven't even existed in over a decade. I've checked Jell-O's website to validate what we thought, and indeed, "Watermelon" and "Pineapple" no longer exist. At least not like this -- now it's some crazy hyper watermelon and "Island Pineapple," the flavor of the tropics. They're sadly undated, so I can't say if they've been making this oversight for 5 years or 15 years, but my best bet would put it somewhere in the middle. We've got no plans to eat the now-insidious gelatin, and find comfort in the fact that we rarely have company here and can get away with using boxes of Jell-O as decorations. And that's my story.
Posted by Matt on 07/09/2003. E-mail me!
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I think that watermelon jello could be from the early 90′s. I think there was this watermelon craze back then.