Friday, October 20, 2006

2:3:2:3:5:5

We all want to believe, when we tear open a pack of M&Ms, that there are just as many green M&Ms as there are blue ones.

But this is not so.

M&M packets are not the multicultural utopia we believe them to be, controlled by the socialist machines that divide them into bags; one color always dominates (in this case, of course, two colors are competing for dominance).

I know this is hard for many of you to take, but someone had to tell you. And anyway, you always knew there were more brown ones than any other color; you just didn't want to admit it.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You crack me up. Reading your blog is a darn good way to take a break from my papers.

The funny thing is that, going a little deeper, the M&Ms may look different on the outside but they all taste the same. There is no [SEMINARY JARGON WARNING] ontological difference between them.

By the way, was that a full-size pack? It seems like an awfully meager selection.

Dulcimer said...

A wonderful point. Often, the kind of diversity we strive for is only skin-deep anyway. . . .

And no, it was not a full-size pack; I think it's the size they make especially for Halloween.

Interestingly enough, I opened another pack the next day and the ratios were completely different (although I think the browns were still dominating). So there you go; maybe it all evens out in the end.

:)

Dulcimer said...

Hmmm. A clarification of what I really mean: maybe we're more diverse than we think we are.

Dulcimer said...

And by "we," I mean M&Ms, of course.

b. said...

hmmm. this is deep. last night i had dinner with an m&m. a red one. and i'm not just being silly. i really did.

Anonymous said...

Wow. One red M&M. Now that is selective. It makes me think: what causes one to select one M&M over an other? Who sets the criteria for separating the sheep and the goats, as it were, of our M&Ms? And was that red M&M a sheep or a goat?

We have to think of final destinations here. What are the eschatological implications of this skin-deep diversity we... I mean, M&Ms embody?

I'm just talking nonsense now. I have no idea what I'm saying. Again, a good break from papers.

b. said...

well, the red m&m was really a friend of mine dressed as a red m&m. at the dinner table. red. big, white m, the whole dinner. it was really her choice to be a red m&m, not mine. and, actually, i'm not even so sure how much the red was her own choice, as she informed me that all the flutes in the marching band were different colored m&m's. she happened to be red. and an m&m. and i happened to have dinner with her on monday night. while she happened to have her m&m on.
true story.