Gone baby gone.

I don’t know if people have noticed this, but I have a tendency to...complain about things. No. It’s true. Part of this comes from the unrelenting stupidity of nearly everyone I encounter. Another part stems from an inability to accomplish the goals I set for myself, and still another part comes from, funnily enough, today’s topic.

Now, I just know there are things that everyone misses that they end up thinking about; things that meant quite a bit to certain people. Not television shows, however; I’ll be here all day talking about that stuff. I mean particular items that seemingly snuck up on me and became very special to me…for a while, at least.

Things I really miss:

Banana parfaits - It’s not like I could walk into any store and get these; they were available exclusively at my store. Unfortunately, the makers were unaware of the danger of introducing such an addictive substance to an impressionable gourmet. I often search various locations with very little (if any) luck.

Ben & Jerry’s Milkshakes - The makers of the famous ice cream took three popular flavors - Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia - and sold them in milk form. I can’t really speak for the latter, but the first two were, to put it bluntly, flavor orgasms. The chocolate and banana flavors were as rich as one could possibly imagine. Why is this no longer being mass-produced?!

Go Bananas Snapple - True to the 'they found out I liked it, so they stopped making it' (apologies to George Carlin) spirit of this post, this flavor was discontinued. I tried it once and, like a number of 'banana-flavored' items, it’s an acquired taste, but a good one...and a damn sight better than Snapple Pie.

Hostess crumb cakes - It used to be that you could walk into any store and pick these up. Not so, these days. The Drake’s brand cakes are tasty enough, but, to quote the classic song, 'ain't nothin' like the real thing, baby'.

Little Debbie Tiger cakes - The spirit of this item lives on in the 'available at various, non-holiday periods of the year' Snack Cakes, but...there was nothing like walking into a store before (or after) high school and munching on them.

McDonald’s Spanish omelet bagel sandwich - Not only was this my favorite breakfast menu item at Mickey Ds, but I dare say that it was their best menu item, period. A fluffy egg folded over with peppers, overlaid with cheese and sauce and stuffed into an ever-so-greasy bagel. If one had to have their arteries clogged with fast food product, then, dear God, let it be this.

Quiznos - There were restaurants popping up all over town, featuring the chain’s unique toasted subs. (I am quite partial to the Turkey Bacon Guacamole.) And then...they disappeared, one at a time, except for one in Lancaster. I admit that this thing is much less scarce than the other items listed here, but, all the same, it seems...ludicrous to travel all those miles on two buses for a fucking sandwich! (...but what a sandwich!)

Sudoku instant lottery tickets - Really. For a time, the deliriously challenging game in the newspaper was also a scratch-and-win lottery ticket. Within the year or so it was available, I saw people come in and turn in those tickets. However (shock and awe!), no one actually played the fucking game, preferring instead to scratch off the solution panel and match the numbers like that. And a lot of these people actually walked away with money. Typical: some people like to be mentally-challenged, but they don’t like to be challenged mentally. (Variations of the ticket are, apparently, still on sale in New Jersey, Michigan, Oregon, Arizona and Colorado. Lucky dogs.)

Super Donuts - I know I’m not the only person who encountered these in school breakfast lines. Available in plain or chocolate, these sticky, sweet pastries were likely to induce sugar shock if one were to eat enough of them...and I defy anyone to tell me it wouldn’t be worth it. A shining example of how we don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. And they were supposed to be good for you! How do you like that?!

The works of KentuckyBootleg - First, a little background: like a lot of people (but, apparently, not enough to justify the Weinsteins not chopping the film up for DVD and cable release), I checked out Grindhouse last spring. Planet Terror and Death Proof were decent-enough programmers, but - like a child eschewing the shiny new toy for the packaging - I was drawn more to the bumpers and, particularly, the trailers. Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS was okay, but Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving and Edgar Wright’s Don’t were, without question, the highlight of the experience. My eyes were opened to the wonder of trailers from long ago. Not coincidentally, I was on YouTube searching for trailers to the film Tourist Trap a few weeks later. It was then that I found a rare thirty-second ad for the film. It had been scattered amongst other horror thriller previews from the period. The user who posted the trailer suite...KentuckyBootleg. For the next few months, I eagerly watched stretches of rare ads (taken from the original 35mm prints, which really helps the viewing experience) that he posted. He even uploaded (in eleven parts) a made for TV thriller that I hadn’t seen in ages: "Dark Night of the Scarecrow". I had hoped to settle in and be transported to my childhood. Sadly, this was not to be. In November, KentuckyBootleg and his videos were gone. For some reason, the links to his posts remain, cruelly taunting me. The result upon clicking on a link: 'This video has been removed by the user', which manages to sting even worse than if he’d been kicked off the site; this was a conscious decision. I’ll always miss his posts (esp. a trailer mix that included, for my money, one of the finest trailers ever cut: a 60-second spot for Theatre of Blood), and I’ll always wonder a) what he’s up to, b) what caused him to leave and c) if he’s ever coming back.

God willing, I'm not the only one who misses these items and, on occasion, grouses about not currently having them.