Want to know a quick way to tick me off?  Wait until I buy some pumpkin bread or a pumpkin muffin.  If that sucker has a raisin in it, I may flip out.  Snap.  Go ballistic.  Turn into Joe Paterno when I’m cut off by a car full of hippies who run stop signs.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love raisins.  Those wrinkly, chewy little nuggets of dried fruit gold are a great addition to many things.  GORP, for instance… or “ants on a log” with celery and peanut butter.  However, raisins most certainly do not belong in anything pumpkin.  It is an abomination created by Sauron himself in the fiery pits of Mount Doom.  Old people and coffee shop owners of the world have been cast under Sauron’s spell and I will champion the cause of all who strive to fight the good fight.

This is, in effect, another fight against “The Man.”

So, how do we fight this villainy, this perversion of baked goods?  We bake, my friends.  We bake with pumpkin… and with chocolate.  Taking the earthly, ripe taste of the seasonal pumpkin and combining it with the year-round, always appreciated chocolate just makes sense.

If you hate the combination of pumpkin and chocolate, then the terrorists have already won.  Go hide in your duct tape and plastic covered windows and enjoy living out the rest of your days like a hermit eating nothing but the castaway rancid raisin-filled concoctions that pollute our bake sales and church potlucks.

That’s right heretic, bake sale organizers hate your kind.  You show up with the type of treats that get put at the back of the dessert table on Thanksgiving, thinking that somehow your raisin-filled tripe will sound appealing this year.  You yourself passed it up to enjoy a nice piece of someone else’s pumpkin pie!  How do you look at yourself in the mirror the day after Thanksgiving?  Is that why you soaked your raisins in rum?  You think a slight rum-raisin-induced buzz will save you from shame and ridicule?  You think that raisin-filled pumpkin bread is going to help the scouts pay for their canoe trip, or the soften the blow on the marching band uniform budget?  I’ll give you $5 to leave that waste at home where your children will beg you to throw it out and your dog will hate your existence for even thinking about putting that thing in the oven.

And you, coffee shop owner and operator… you should know better.  Your mother made this?  I think it’s time your mother was moved into a home and forced to play scrabble all day while watching re-runs of Matlock.  No… that sounds more like a reward than a punishment.  Change scrabble to Russian Roulette and change Matlock to any of the MTV shows that feature 17 year olds who drive BMWs and live on the ocean and complain about the drama of only getting a $20,000 dress for prom.  Your mom will waste away as we enjoy raisin-free delights with our grande non-fat sugar-laced heroi… coffee.

Me?  I’m going to enjoy the last few lingering bites of pumpkin and chocolate chip muffin I have in front of me while I listen to the new Radiohead album.

We’ve won this battle, my friends, but the war against raisin-filled baked goods has only begun.