The Jelly-filled Pistol

Even disregarding harmful chemical additives, snack terrorists may use a run-of-the-mill piece of pastry to conjure up fear and horror. A Baltimore school student inadvertently exposed that fact as he nibbled on his Pop-Tart, a sort of jelly-filled pastry pocket, in the school lunchroom. Every second grader knows the routine: Lunch break and it’s always the same old boring thing yawning up from the lunch box. The only thing to do is to introduce new aesthetic principles into the lunch routine and transform the food into new shapes by way of taking well-planned bites to change how it looks! It’s easy enough to come up with ideas, and “house” and “tree” are soon followed by “mountain.” Unfortunately, this student couldn’t conjure up a good enough image of a mountain, and his nibbling ultimately resulted in what looked more like a pistol.

Significant Potential

The classroom teacher and the school principal, understandably sensitive to guns in school since the tragic shootings in Newtown, were certain: Any glorification of violence — even if it takes the form of a heavily sugared snack — is clearly a threatening gesture, and they suspended the student from school for two days. But that seemed a heavy penalty even to many Americans. What about other edibles? An apple, for example, could be imagined as a hand grenade. Could forming a pistol shape with one’s hand be grounds enough for expulsion? And ultimately: What is merely child’s play and what are clear danger signs of an impending shooting spree?

The boy’s parents thought he had done nothing wrong and engaged a lawyer who immediately defended the boy by making the rhetorically ironclad statement, “This kid was just as imaginative and is just as adventurous as Steve Jobs was at the age of 7.” Exactly. Just imagine what a seven-year-old kid, who can already turn convention on its head while eating lunch, break new culinary ground and show his latent interest in guns all at the same time, will be capable of accomplishing as an adult.