Subliminal Messages/Girl Scout Cookies

I love this time of year.  But, its not because the temperature sometimes jumps up a few degrees and Spring feels like its finally on its way.  I do certainly enjoy this phenomenon.  What I love about this time of year are the cookies.  Yes, the Girl Scout Cookies.  I do a lot of my own baking (if you haven't already noticed), but Thin Mints and Caramel DeLites are cookies I've never attempted on my own.  And I don't plan to.  I'm sure any I could create wouldn't compare to the deliciousness of the ones mass produced by the Girl Scouts.  And I mean that wholeheartedly.

Tonight I broke into my first box of Caramel DeLites.  I had never taken much notice of the name, maybe in part because I grew up calling them Samoas.  My husband, on the other hand, walks over to me as I'm happily indulging and tells me that the Girl Scouts are trying to send me subliminal messages.  You see, the term "lite" generally stirs up images of something that is "lighter" than a similar product--for instance in fat or sugar content.  The idea of "lite" makes a person feel like the thing they are consuming is, to some degree, more healthy.  So, as I'm enjoying my Caramel DeLite, my husband tells me that my mind is being manipulated.

No, I tell him.  My mind is not being manipulated.  I assure him that I bought the cookies based on their taste and not their title.  In fact, I didn't even notice that it was DeLite instead of Delight.  No, no, no, he says.  Your conscious may not have realized it, but your subconscious surely did.  And that is their purpose--to sway you to buy the cookies on account of their "healthiness"--though they are most certainly not healthy at all.

While this may be true for some people, this definitely wasn't true for me.  I bought these cookies because they taste amazing.  In fact, I tell my husband, I would buy them even if they were called Caramel DeFats instead of Caramel DeLites.  Huh, he says, walking away in disbelief, shaking his head.  He might not believe me, but I'm sure of it.  They're delicious no matter their name.  As far as I'm concerned, worth the cost and the calories.