We've gone too far with pumpkin-spice Spam

Remember when pumpkin spice was something you used in a pumpkin pie? (Or, frankly, you were like me and didn't know that there was a spice connected with pumpkin?)

That was a lifetime ago.

We now live in a pumpkin spice world, with Starbucks rolling out its pumpkin spice latte progressively earlier every year. There are a variety of other products – tea, gelato, pancakes, cough drops and more – that offer pumpkin-spice-flavored versions.

Yes, pumpkin-spice cough drops. When you want your coughs to feel like autumn.

The recent pumpkin-spice flavor avalanche is enough to scare many people. Where will it end? Is there a product that's immune to pumpkin spice? Will the return of the Spice Girls feature a singer named Pumpkin Spice who will be the most popular in the group?

We thought pumpkin spice mania hit the nadir last year, when a deodorant company came out with a pumpkin-spice-latte scent.

We were wrong. Dead wrong.

Because this year, we have . . . pumpkin-spice Spam.

Yes. Spam.

The rectangular meat-in-a-can product that heretofore has been popular primarily among Hawaiians, Filipinos and former U.S. military members.

Spam.

Now with a pumpkin spice flavor.

Hormel Foods, the company that makes Spam (as well as Dinty Moore stews, Hormel Chili, La Victoria salsa and Skippy peanut butter) said it will make the pumpkin-spice Spam available Sept. 23 through the online outlets for Walmart and Spam.

(Side thought: what do people at Spam headquarters call their junk mail? Do they have to teach their junk mail filter to not automatically delete anything with "spam" in the name? How do they avoid having their outgoing email not go into spam folders when the email address is brad@spam.com?)

Anyway, back to pumpkin-spice Spam. Will this trend ever stop?

There is science behind the idea that sugar and pumpkin spice are highly addictive. The popularity of the otherwise inedible Spam among some people – who go wild for the stuff – suggests that it similarly has a strange physical hold.

Is the combination of Spam and pumpkin-spice flavor is the food version of a speedball – a mixture of cocaine and heroin? Two highly addictive substances combined together?

I'm not slamming Spam. I respect Spam's game. I respect the cultural values that somehow . . . no, wait a minute, that's not true. Spam is a gross food made by an American food company and packaged for mass consumption.

It's slimy "meat" in a can!

Hormel somehow convinced people that Spam is tasty, but now they're trying to expand their empire by luring pumpkin-spice fans into the cult.

You can enjoy Spam if you like. You can enjoy pumpkin spice if you like. But let me warn you: Combining the two flavors is a crime against humanity and there will be repercussions.

When you see a generation of kids drinking that slimy "juice" that comes out of Spam cans because it's pumpkin-spice flavored, remember 2019. Because this is the year we went too far.

With Spam. With pumpkin spice.

Two things that should never be combined.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.