How lazy can you get?

It can never be said that I’m overly ambitious. I’m as lazy as the next person, but laziness does have its limits. Even I can see that.

I can remember when I was a teenager I picked something up off the floor by grabbing it with my toes and then bending my knee to bring it upward. I thought I was being super efficient. My dad gave me what for about it, chiding me for not bending over and picking the item off the floor. He said I was lazy.

What’s the big deal, I thought. I have toe dexterity. Fast forward to the present time, and I now wistfully look back at the gracefulness it took to stand on one foot to accomplish the task. I’d fall on my backside now if I tried it.

Well, maybe it was a little lazy. Most people do try to find the easiest way of doing something. We now have robot vacuum sweepers to suck the dust out of the carpet. We used to have to push a vacuum cleaner across the floor, and before that we had to drag the carpet outside and beat the dirt out of it.

But how lazy can you get when you buy frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

The jelly people, Smuckers, makes them. They’re called “Uncrustables,” and they’re sold in boxes in the freezer section of the grocery store. Actually, they’re not new. They’ve been around for a while.

I didn’t think they’d be as popular as they seem to be. I mean, what’s so difficult about slapping some peanut butter on a slice of bread, spooning jelly on top of it, and then either folding it over or adding another slice of bread? Give me a break! Who’s going to buy that?

Apparently, it’s a marketing thing. Kids see it advertised on TV and they beg their moms to buy it. It isn’t really a whole sandwich. It’s a glob of peanut butter in the middle of a slice of bread, a glob of jelly, and another slice of bread and the whole thing is smooshed together and the crusts are cut off and then it’s frozen. It thaws quickly, so the marketers say. But you’ve wasted the crust and part of the bread! I’m too lazy to do the math, but I feel certain that those frozen sandwiches cost four times as much as one even a kid could make.

Maybe it appeals to people who don’t really care what they eat. Hungry? Get a pb&j out of the freezer. But what does it taste like? Remember those jars of peanut butter with stripes of jelly running down the jar? Peanut butter and jelly all in one jar. Easy. Or lazy. I think they still make it. It was awful.

I haven’t tried the Uncrustables. Something about the concept just doesn’t seem right. And I’ll bet money they don’t taste good. I did a Google search on them, though, and found a site where you could learn how to make a homemade Uncrustable so your kids can have a fresh homemade snack.

News flash: You always could do that. If you weren’t so lazy.