For the better part of 16 years my relationship with raisins has been one where we steered clear from each other’s lives. But all that came to a screeching halt when raisins came into my life in the worst possible way.

It was a beautiful Wednesday afternoon when the incident took place. I was a hungry 16-year-old high school kid with 85 cents to spare on those delicious cafeteria cookies. You know, the ones that melt when you go break a piece off and the only remaining connection between the two is a half melted chocolate chip. The ones that leave your fingers with a chocolate-y residue that can only be cleaned by licking ones own fingers. The ones that make you forget all of life’s problems and hold you in an ever fleeting moment of chocolate-y goodness. Those ones.

But this cookie, or dare I say abomination, would be different. It came time for me to order and I was giddy as a teen could possibly be. I looked at Maria, the larger than life Italian cafeteria lady that had been slowly fattening me up over the last few years, and I pointed at the biggest, warmest, most delicious looking cookie of the bunch. She handed me the cookie with a smile and screamed NEXT! as I quickly hurried out eager to devour my new found love. Yes, love. I was in love with cookie. I imagined a life together, where I would sit, eat and savour every moment of our short lived yet delicious love affair.

I ran into the cafe and grabbed myself a seat next to some friends. I went to break the cookie, it didn’t melt like it usually did, but that didn’t matter. I just wanted its chocolate-y goodness inside my body and that’s exactly what I did. With smile from ear to ear, I put that piece of cookie in my mouth and began to chew.

But that smile faded. I spat it out thinking it could have been rat turds. But I was wrong. It was worse, much worse than I could have even imagined. In fact, rat turds would have been much better than the horror that I discovered. It was a raisin. In my rush to enjoy a beautiful cookie, I had accidentally bought and chewed a raisin cookie. A cookie from hell, sprinkled with the shit of Beelzebub himself.

I know what you’re thinking. Raisins aren’t that bad and one experience isn’t enough to hate raisins. But you’re wrong. You don’t know what I went through. The suffering, the heartbreak, and the tears, it was just far too much for me to handle. I don’t just hate raisins. I hate everything they stand for.

Raisins are everything that is wrong with the world. Raisins are nothing but pure unadulterated evil. Raisins are what you get when you take all the good out from the world. Because when you go through all the good Halloween candy, all you’re left with are a box of disgusting Sun Maid raisins, that only people who hate happiness give to others in lieu of candy.

I know this may seem ridiculous, but please, bear with me here. Raisins are what you get when you take the life out of grapes. Raisins are the wrath of grapes. Look at grapes; they’re happy and full of life. And do you know what else they do? They make other people happy. The Greeks fed them to each other and the Italians made wine from them. What have raisins done? Ruin a young man’s cookie? And that’s only just the beginning.

Grapes are full of life and happiness and they bring joy to everyone. Raisins… well there isn’t much more I can say about them. But what I can say is that we should live like the grapes. Bring pleasure and happiness to those around us, rather that live like a raisin with all the life, happiness and good drained out of us.

Raisins are what you get when life gets to you. That long arduous journey of a grape is going to take a toll, but don’t let it stop you from becoming an old wrinkled raisin that everyone hates. I’d rather die a grape than live to see myself become a raisin.