The Bad Color

This weekend I turned in an assignment for one of my classes in which I was to introduce myself to my instructor. I took the assignment seriously and carefully chose the details I felt were most important in acquainting her with me. Today I got back her comments from the assignment, which said, "WOW! Excellent! Great use of APA style! I am concerned, though...do you really dislike blue M&M's?"

I was thrilled with her praise, and decided that since she had written a personal comment to me, she deserved a response. I enjoyed writing the email so much that I've decided to share it with the rest of you.

Hello! I just saw your nice comment on my introduction paper, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to assert my dislike of blue M&M's. Let me take you back to 1995, when I was but a lass in 6th grade, new to the idea that I was no longer a small child. One day I heard a commercial playing on TV, telling me that a NEW color was going to be introduced to my favorite candy--M&M's--and I could choose the color! Never before had I wielded such power. Surely this must be due to my new status as a "middle school" student. I had to act; but as we know from the great Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility. I could not choose the new color on a whim! I considered carefully my choices: blue, purple, or pink?

Clearly, the choice could not be pink. I mean, come on. Pink? Definitely not. That left blue and purple. Purple is my favorite color, but could it stand up to the corps of classic M&M colors? I'm ashamed to admit that I doubted. I turned my back on the color that had served me so well for so long and considered choosing blue. Blue, as a primary color, would fit in well with red, yellow, green, and orange. But wait--what was I thinking? Blue was TOO obvious! Of course it would fit in well; yet, Mars, Inc. had chosen to exclude it at the conception of M&M's. It could be said that a trademark of M&M's is that they did NOT include the color blue.

My choice was clear. It had to be purple. Purple would fit in nicely with the green, orange, and brown M&M's without changing the pallette of the product. I picked up the phone and called in my vote.

Weeks later, the deplorable announcement was made: the new M&M color would be blue. Mars, Inc. had disregarded my vote and rejected my favorite color. And this was not to be the end of their treachery--in adding blue to the colors, they REMOVED the yellowy-brown color that made plain M&M's worth eating. It was too much. I vowed I would never eat a blue M&M.

And so, when I partake of the candy, the people around me are invited to join in and eat as many blue M&M's as they wish; for I will not.