the animal cracker personality test

I’m not an impulsive shopper. I’m not even a shopper. Shopping is one of my top three most hated things to do.

I stood in the Winco parking lot reminding myself of these facts, mantra-style, and wondering why I bought this giant bag of animal crackers. No exaggeration, it’s huge; three pounds! It has been 10 years or more since I’ve supported a child who needed a constant supply of animal crackers. So why did I just blow $3.78 on it?

There’s nothing like a good self-analysis. So I sat in my car, refusing to leaving the parking lot until I figured out why I had just done what I did. Like all good shrinks, I began tracing my link to animal crackers through a series of questions–What did they remind me of? Is one animal shape particularly more painful to remember than the other? Do images of mutilated cracker animals keep me up all night? Have I experienced some kind of separation anxiety that’s acutely tied to these crackers?

Well, it worked. I think. My analysis: The big giant red bag of animal crackers represents the big giant hole in my momminess. Grabbing it was symbolic of me wanting to reach into the past and get back the memory-making era when my children were growing up–little people on their way to grownups. It made me remember how, even as little kids, each was a unique individual. And how the way they ate their animal crackers told me so much about each one: Kenny would grab a handful out of jar and throw them into his mouth one after the other, ball-in-hoop style. Jez would sort his crackers by animals and then proceed to eat one animal group at a time. Sky would bite off heads and limbs and throw the limbless, headless bodies back in the cookie jar!

At 120 calories per 16 animal crackers, it’s going to be at least a hundred days before I eat all of them. I guess I might as well make the most of it–I shall remember more fun things from my mommy days as I bite of those cracker limbs.