"
Simple Goodness!" the box proclaims with
Bob Evans-esque sincerity. "This snack is boring," the plain yellow box seems to be saying, "but it's a pure and wholly comforting brand of boring that you'll be glad to raise your children on." It shows a pile of the little golden
ellipses, with one frozen in the act of being dropped from a great height into a glass of
milk.
Nabisco has changed these tasty little morsels of flour, sugar, and vanilla extract very little in the last two decades, which is as far back as I can remember. To me they have the air of something ancient and time honored, though, as something simple enough that they could've been around as long as people knew how to get vanilla flavoring into food and could get ahold of sugar from the local dry-goods store. The packaging has been a bit updated, but not by much. A nicer font, shading in the background that gives the impression of sunlight peeking through venetian blinds on a warm summer evening. The box that inspired this node is garishly emblazoned with a WIN INSTANTLY insert, slapped on as an afterthought, proclaiming Nilla Wafers as "an Official Cookie of NASCAR" and showing a picture of a 2002 Monte Carlo SS. To me, it seems an affront to the simplicity inherrent in Nillas... they don't need to be the offical cookie of anything. They trancend. The idea of a trancendent cookie is a little odd, but what better candidate for that strange title than Nillas?
Nillas are good. They remind me of my childhood. Why do I get the feeling that they remind everybody of their childhood?