ANNOUNCEMENT: New Impulsive Buy Reviewer Karen

Hi everyone, I’m Karen. Now I know what you’re thinking: as a Karen, I must be one of those women who gives every cashier a hard time and constantly asks to see the manager. Do not believe what the internet has told you: most Karens are completely harmless, even in a retail environment. It’s just a few soccer moms with delusions of grandeur that give all Karens a bad name.

I’ve always been a sweets lover. When I was a little kid, my Mom often had Ring Dings around the house, and I got to eat them as an afterschool snack. Ever since then, it has been my sole occupation in life to acquire more sweet treats. I got married and had a kid somewhere in there, but that just means I can steal my kid’s snacks. Okay, I don’t actually do that, but she has a whole basket of leftover Halloween candy right now…she doesn’t even look at it…what would be the harm…anyway, I like salty snacks from time to time too, but on the whole I’m a sugar lover. I’m also a coffee lover, although I went through a brief, intensive tea-head phase in 2019 that I still don’t understand. My main areas of food interests include bread, cakes, cookies, and cereals; if that seems incredibly broad to you, you’re not wrong.

I’m a professional writer, but I haven’t always been able to choose my subjects. I worked in newspapers for a couple of years, and while I wanted to write about boxed pie and Chips Ahoy varieties, the bosses wanted me to write about sewer management and school board meetings. It wasn’t always fun, but on the plus side, if you ever need someone to write cogently about legislative redistricting while eating an entire cake, I’m your girl. Nowadays I write fantasy novels, so I can write about vampires eating cake instead. I like this better than newspapers, although I do kind of miss the cookies they would put out at school board meetings. Some of the wealthier districts put out a good spread, no joke.

What else is important about me? I’m a big fan of comics and anime, but that’s largely because I need something for my eyeballs to do while I’m eating. X-Men>>>Avengers, I’m just saying. I’m also finishing up a Master’s degree in literature, because there’s nothing left to do once you’ve already made the mistake of majoring in English than to go hard-core. My favorite boxed snack is Little Debbie’s Nutty Buddies, which my husband claims taste like cardboard; the weird thing is, I actually agree with him on this, yet I still love them. It’s sort of cardboard-y but it’s got some cool textural thing going on that my mouth just loves. I’m a New Yorker, I say “soda,” not “pop,” and I am happy to be your new snack food guinea pig.