Literary Yard

Search for meaning

By: Todd Mercer

Dear Regular Yogurt,

The jig is up, the show’s over. You had a steady run that lasted a long generation or so. Now it falls to me to tell you what you should have already realized. The hour’s come to fade into the sunset gracefully, while you still have your dignity.

“Why?” you might ask, disingenuously.

Because, wake up! Greek Yogurt is eating your lunch. He’s suctioning up your entire customer base. He already beat you so soundly that you can’t rise back off the bottom shelf. It’s worse than you think. Greek Yogurt is a rock star.

Greek Yogurt is taking your wife away. They go dancing at sketchy dance club/pool halls on the West Side, where she never would go with you. She calls him Sir in front of your kids. He calls her his Little Pomegranate. Such a disgrace. Your children may not be your children, Regular Yogurt. Greek Yogurt is remolding your easy chair to fit himself. He changed your dog’s name to Skip.

Please just go, Regular Yogurt. Take it from a natural ally. Don’t sit there being watery and going out of date. Greek Yogurt’s much thicker than you, I mean a lot thicker. Everyone knows he’s more substantial. You can’t beat that with a marketing angle, Regular Yogurt. Each time they see you, that’s what they think of. What they don’t understand is why you are still here, collecting humiliation. Stop trying. Please, stop. Have an ounce of pride.

See you in the funny papers,

New Coke (Retired)

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Todd Mercer’s short collection, Ingenue, was a winner of the Celery City contest. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance, was edited by Laura M. Kaminski and is available for free at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in Blink Ink, Fictive Dream, and Six Sentences.

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