I’m gonna say it - please don’t hate me: Otter Pops don’t taste like much. Okay, okay, okay. Before you get all up in my face like that, I love Otter Pops more than anything in the whole entire world. Okay? Can you let me talk now? Thank you.
Otter Pops, if you have never come across a sticky child before, are frozen treats wrapped in plastic tubes. Like a homemade juice pop, but commercialized, bright blue (or red, or purple, or pink, or orange, or the color of green radioactive waste in cartoons), and probably awful for the environment. I wouldn’t be surprised if the government put microchips in them with the intent of turning us all into giraffe hybrids (or something). Yeah. They’re delightful.
I had my first Otter Pop at the ripe age of “field trips are the only notable thing in my life besides the tooth fairy,” and let me tell you it changed my life. The only problem was that my tiny brain thought that the specific one I had eaten was the only one in the entire world and that they couldn’t be found anywhere else besides from the camp counselor who gave it to me. I forgot about them, of course. Until they seeped into Ouray High School.
It started last year, when a few students bought an absurdly large box of them and put it in the communal freezer at school so they would stay cold.
Someone who didn’t buy the box ate one.
Someone else took two - one for their friend and one for them.
Someone, trying to find their lunch, got distracted and took an Otter Pop instead of their frozen pizza.
The freshmen found the stash.
(You can probably guess what happened next.)
Soon enough, the freezer was completely picked clean of Otter Pops, and the high school’s appetite for them had only increased. Thus began Ouray High School students’s addiction to Otter Pops. They have now fully and completely infiltrated our school and are a shockingly large contributor to the student culture.
At this point in the school year, some teachers have had to ban them from their classrooms. As we all know, banning something stokes desire for it. Otter Pops are no exception. I have participated in passionate disputes about Otter Pop flavors in probably every single classroom.
A plastic tube filled with semi-frozen liquid poses a challenge to high schoolers with minimal access to scissors. The school is divided by techniques for opening Otter Pops: the bite-the-top-off-ers, the just-break-it-in-half-ers, the find-scissors-at-all-costs-ers, and the accost-the-popsicle-until-it-is-no-longer-frozen-and-then-manhandle-it-until-it-leaks-ers.
We Ouray High School students take this very seriously. If you couldn’t tell. These popsicles have somehow fostered an unspoken bond between us. Nothing else could have created this level of connection and camaraderie among 40 completely different teenagers.
Otter Pops have no flavor - they really don’t - no nutritional value, no intrinsic worth; but they have managed to create common ground throughout the entire high school, so I’d consider it a win.