As a news guy I’m sad to report this item. We’re out of news. Debate it all you like, but when I discover dozens of stories about two separate lawsuits regarding Pop Tarts, that’s all the proof I need.

I’m sure you’ve seen them. One tells the true tale of an Illinois woman filing a $5 million class action suit against Pop Tart maker Kellogg.

Another suit filed by a woman in upstate New York not only calls for $5 million in damages but a jury trial! I’d love to be called for jury duty in that one. I’d bring a case of Pop Tarts and hand ’em out with juice boxes in the jury room.

Here’s the alleged rub. The cereal litigants believe they are owed some dough because the strawberry Pop Tarts don’t have enough strawberries but a lot of sugar, apples and pears. Pardon me. It’s fuckin’ fruit! Strawberry is one of them. If they labeled them Pear Pop Tarts would anyone eat them? There already is an apple variety. So it’s strawberry by default. Label says strawberry, ya got some.

I’m kinda passionate about this particular item because it not only helped me earn my college degree but woo my eventual wife as well.

It was 1969 at the State University of New York at Oswego on the frigid shores of Lake Ontario. I was sent there by my parents who wanted me as far away as possible from the morons I hung out with in high school 325 miles away in Queens.

Early on I met a cute coed and we hit it off right away. As things progressed I visited her room more often. Being a gracious hostess hoping to win my heart she plied me with well-presented frosted apple Pop Tarts and a nasty Finger Lakes wine called Catawba Pink. The combination of cardboard stuffed with sugary gravel and the vile vino was a potent aphrodisiac.

When the Pink Catawba finally ran out, we washed down our subsequent Pop Tarts with an appropriate substitute, orange Tang—the stuff astronauts drank then had trouble peeing out into their space suits. Yes, it took space age fake orange juice to break through the cement formed in our bowels by the Pop Tart’s crust/mortar.

Well, this went on through 1973. Pop Tart fueled snack assignations that provided the fuel for both our studies and our romance that led me popping the question in March of that year. Upon graduation and marriage shortly thereafter we went on to dine regularly on Pop Tarts, branching out from apple to brown sugar cinnamon, always, always, with frosting. A Pop Tart with no frosting could only be used for one thing…a shim under a wobbly table.

As we’ve aged we were forced to end our Pop Tart habit since they had a way of creating impassable intestinal dams, making colonoscopies impossible—much the same way those foolish lawsuits would jam up the courts with nonsense Pop Torts.