What’s wrong with the gingerbread man, too many years of ending up on the cookie platter? Perhaps there were too many years of being rolled out by children and iced by mad mothers? Who knows what turned the gingerbread man sour? Who cares anymore? The Gingerbread man no longer emanates from the Gingerbread fun machine, oh no. The Gingerbread man is myth, beast, brownish cookie that burns the mouth that most kids don’t like. What’s the point of being a cookie that kids don’t like, one that’s built like a man, yet it’s a cookie that’s spicy. No wonder they are ticked off. No wonder the gingerbread man has decided to unite with other snubbed sweets, like the fruit cake and the plain donut.

Think about it. How would you like to be a fruitcake? The name itself is demeaning, regardless of the fact that you are the only cake with gumdrops and raisins inside. You are the only cake that can be passed on Christmas after Christmas from family member to family member. It’s bad enough that no one really knows how they are made. It’s even worse that aunt Emma makes you every year for everyone that she’s ever met, and plain donuts? Come on. How many times have you been the late guy at work and of course all that was left was the plain donut and suddenly you realize, though you were salivating at dreams of chocolate glaze only moments before, that you are on a diet, and now’s as good a time as any to try tofu. Cake donuts are the outsider donut, yet there’s nothing cool about them, unless you like choking to death on a Sahara dry confection.

This brings us back to the gingerbread man, the cast-off sweet, the loner treat, the confection that is most definitely the angry cookie. He’s endured a lifetime of conflict, a lifetime full of issues. Am I a cookie, or am I a man? If I’m a cookie then why don’t the kids like me? Why do they bite off my head and spit me out on the floor with no care at all about my feelings, about my wants and needs, about ME? I mean, things could be worse, of course, one could be a fruitcake.

The gingerbread man is having a mid-life crisis. The gingerbread man needs to try some therapy, maybe learn to share a nice warm oven with a gingerbread woman and unwind. Aunt Emma won’t care. The gingerbread man needs to start thinking past the Holidays and he needs to start thinking about his future. What will happen to the gingerbread man if the gingerbread fun machine goes out of business? The gingerbread man needs to start thinking about the future of his people. Those Keebler elves aren’t going to make them forever, especially if kids keep spitting their heads on the playgrounds of America every recess at Christmas time. The gingerbread man needs to relax, take some time off and enjoy the world. Perhaps it would be good if he tried some introspective improvement, maybe added some sugar and learned how to taste good.

After all, icing can only carry you so far.

Ask bread pudding. Bread pudding has almost become extinct, and for good reason. In a world full of ding-dongs and twinkies, how is bread pudding supposed to compete. Much like the gingerbread man, the bread pudding is going to have to update its recipe. You can’t improve if you don’t change, and kids won’t eat you if you taste really bad. They just won’t. They’re silly that way. Ask the gingerbread man.