Disturbing Trends in Pea Packaging

My dad picked up some groceries for me yesterday, among them a bag of frozen peas. It was an average bag of frozen peas, weighing in at a single pound, about seven inches wide and five and a half inches tall. What was special about this bag of peas? It had a handle.

We all hold in our mind certain prototypes--ideal examples of what psychologists call natural concepts. For the category of "mammal," for instance, one pictures something furry or hairy, with four legs, and possibly an eagerly wagging tail. Bats and porpoises, though unarguably members of the Class Mammalia, are poor mammal prototypes. Similarly, when considering grocery items with handles, ten-pound boxes of laundry detergent and twenty-five-pound sacks of water softener salt fit the bill. One-pound bags of peas do not.

It hasn't escaped me that frozen peas are cold, and that holding them by a plastic handle ensures your fingers won't freeze. But one problem remains: Do people ever buy peas on the fly? During the hunger-panged grocery rush between close of business and the six o'clock rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond--the trips where you don't want to waste a single second picking up a basket and opt to just cradle purchases in your arms--are frozen peas on your list?

It's unlikely. Frozen peas are for market trips when you're resigned to laboring a directionally challenged cart, much like Pa Ingalls labored with the oxen on Little House, piling it high with canned goods, teddy bear-emblazoned fabric softener, and odor-eaters.

And I have an uneasy feeling that the very presence of a handle invites misuse. Somewhere, sometime, someone's going to suffer because of that handle. There's perhaps some innocent seven-year-old boy, a good kid, living just mainland of the Apostle Islands in Northern Wisconsin. His parents are organic blueberry farmers and wear Birkenstocks in the dead of winter.

One morning the parents' yoga practice runs over. As the school bus rumbles in the near distance, they realize the boy's SpongeBob SquarePants lunch box remains unfilled. With no other option, they frantically grab the bag of peas from the freezer--the one with the convenient handle--and slip it over his mitten-covered hand.

With a reassuring smile and a trace of poorly hidden excitement, they intone, "Oh honey, it's perfect! The peas will defrost just in time for lunch!"

Dear, innocent boy. If only your parents loved you enough to buy Lunchables.
--Katie Sheehan