Gone are the colorful bags of pretzels and Lucky Charms cereal bars. Gone are the Cheez-Its and the Chips Ahoy. A new age of snacks has come to Poly, and it has arrived with all the perceived health benefits of cherry mango fruit leather and all the disappointment of a two-ounce bag of chips, or puffed air, for $1.25.

And yet, we’re fine. We convince ourselves as we choke back roasted edamame, pretending we don’t miss those bright orange squares that once sat serenely behind the same glass. After all, unemployment is down, test scores are up, and the weather has reached peak fall temperatures. Things should be good, we should be happy, but, despite all of this, we are not.

We have become the roasted edamame of the snack world and, frankly, that is shameful. We are tired, we are dry, we are trying to be healthy, but failing spectacularly.

Snacks are wonderful and there is no question about that. In a world of homework, tests, essays, and presentations they rise high above all else and remind us that there is something worth fighting for until that last bell.

However, when that fight becomes one that is waged for something as mundane and pseudo-healthy as a whole grain cookie, it becomes a fight I would rather not participate in.

A well-known proverb says, “It is better to live for one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.”

We as Poly students deserve the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory surrounded by Cheez-Its and Chips Ahoy rather than slowly fade away into a sea of fruit leather and broken dreams.