vituperation

September 4, 2002

Life’s been very boring since Wednesday (the fact that the girl at the Hardee’s window just asked me for my number a few minutes ago notwithstanding) since all I’ve done is gone to work, cut the grass, and sit on my ass, so in lieu of a real entry, I give you a letter I sent to one Forrest Mars, CEO of Mars Inc., several years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

November 3, 1997

Mr. Forrest E. Mars, Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
Mars, Inc.
6885 Elm St.
McLean, VA 22101-3810

Dear Mr. Mars:

Recently I purchased a bag of Starburst Fruit Chews™ to distribute to neighborhood children for Halloween. The package I bought was one of individually wrapped "two-packs" of the candy. I also purchased some lollipops to hand out.

Unfortunately, I only had one trick-or-treater (I’m not sure why this is; perhaps it’s because I live in an apartment), and I gave him a couple of the lollipops, because I’m partial to Starburst™ (especially the cherry ones). I began snacking on the Starburst™ on Halloween night. Oddly, it seemed that all I was getting were lemon-flavored candies, with the exception of one orange and one strawberry.

Being somewhat scientific (and a geek), I decided to check out the whole package. After opening all the packets I discovered that, in this whole big bag with over 50 two-packs of fruit chews, there were 3 cherry fruit chews, 3 strawaberry fruit chews, and 7 orange fruit chews. Every other fruit chew in the whole pack was lemon!

I like, nay love, Starburst Fruit Chews™ (especially the cherry ones), but was somewhat disappointed to find so many lemon fruit chews in this one bag. Finding so many has raised a few questions in my mind. Is it normal? Is lemon the cheapest to make? Have the other flavors somehow not made the grade? Is there, dare I say it, a chance that the Mars Corporation is not an equal-flavor-opportunity candy maker? Or is it something more sinister - a conspiracy, perhaps…

After all, the other flavors surely deserve equal time, don’t they?

Take, for instance, the noble cherry. Our nation’s capital has cherry trees lining the avenues around some of its greatest monuments. George Washington, the father of our country, chopped down a cherry tree as a child. We use this story to teach our youth not to lie, but you only saw fit to put three cherry chews in an entire bag.

Or the awesome orange. Probably half of the people in this great nation drink orange juice for breakfast. Our astronauts, who lead us to new heights as a country, drink Tang™ in space. It’s orange-flavored. But, alas, you only put seven orange chews in that bag.

I could go on, but I’ve become emotionally distraught. I don’t know what else to do, but ask that you please see if you can find it in your heart to more evenly distribute the delicious flavors in future bags of Starburst Fruit Chews™. I know I’m only one consumer, but I hope to be heard.

Puckered from lemon,

Fred And3rson

December 4, 1997

Dear Mr. And3rson:

Thank you for your letter.

We are sorry to hear that the flavor assortment of STARBURST® Original Fruit Chews disappointed you. Your comments are being shared with our production staff.

Our automated packaging system provides a mixture of the designated flavors for each package, but the quantity of each flavor is not necessarily uniform. We hope your next package will hold the right mix for you!

That’s why we’ve enclosed complimentary store coupons redeemable for our products. Thanks for letting us know how you feel.

Sincerely,

Forrest Mars,
Mars, Incorporated

We used the coupons to get m&ms.