Mashing guest blogging up with service journalism, I’m today posting long-standing S-A reader JP Toto’s open letter to the Dolly Madison Bakery Company.

To whom it may concern:

I am the most recent victim of the label on your Dolly Madison APPLE Sweet Rolls.

You’ll notice I capitalized the word APPLE. This is to approximate, however inaccurately, the prominence with which the word apple is displayed on the packaging of your Dolly Madison Apple Sweet Rolls.

That prominence would suggest to me and, I suspect, many other helpless vending machine patrons, that the average Dolly Madison Apple Sweet Roll contains a modestly generous portion of (albeit almost certainly highly processed and enriched) apple filling.

This, I discovered, is not the case at all. In fact, the amount of apple filling contained within the baked doughy “roll” is a paltry sum when compared to the overall mass of the pastry. When considered critically, I think you’ll therefore agree that calling your Dolly Madison Apple Sweet Rolls, such as they are, “APPLE sweet rolls”, is a bit of a misnomer.

I cannot provide physical evidence of my claim, having already eaten such. Please let this warning serve as notice, though, that we consumers of pre-packaged vending machine fare will not stand for such poorly conceived confections, no matter how low our standards already are for your run-of-the-mill ninety-cent treat.

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