For me, Easter conjures images of bright colors: chocolate eggs wrapped in shiny cobalt and magenta foils, hard-boiled eggs dyed in vibrant hues, plastic grass poking from brightly colored baskets. Whether it’s robin-egg blue, grass green or sunflower yellow, Easter is all about color with bold splashes of spring.

Holiday in one hue
But at Wal-Mart this year, Easter has gone monochromatic. With a marketing campaign boasting the ease of “shopping by color,” Wal-Mart goes against the grain by offering customers the option of simply “picking a color and building a basket.” Walking down aisles full of like-colored candy is a dream for someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Wal-Mart’s Easter candy is grouped by color with sections offering pink, yellow, green, blue and purple confections.

I first noticed the trend a few weeks ago while on the hunt for the first Cadbury Mini Egg harvest. Loyal Rant readers know that this candy signals spring’s arrival for me. With their delicate, pastel, candy-coated shells and creamy, milk chocolate interiors, Cadbury Mini Eggs are the king of all Easter candies. Once Valentine’s Day’s gummy cupids and conversation hearts have been cleared from retail aisles, I begin my quest for the crunchy, delectable chocolate eggs.

Thus, you can probably guess how my heart raced to see cardboard egg cutouts hanging over Wal-Mart’s candy aisles. And you can imagine my subsequent surprise to find that while an aisle or two still contained the traditional smattering of multicolored, mega-sugar Easter candy options, one aisle was displayed in color order. Cadbury Mini Eggs, like the bags of monochromatic M&Ms that were marketed before them, are now offered in small, single-color bags. The yellow eggs have a yellow bow on the bag. They’re grouped alongside yellow marshmallow Peeps, yellow springtime M&Ms, yellow foil-wrapped Hershey Kisses and a smattering of knock-off Easter candy options all in yellow.

Someone needs to tell the big bunny that Easter has been segregated. When I first saw the monochromatic offering, I thought that maybe someone at the top had gotten creative and found a new, eye-catching way to display the candy. It wasn’t until I received a Wal-Mart Sunday circular the other day that I realized, in its all-knowing wisdom, Wal-Mart had a much bigger plan.

And who are these people who would prefer to grab a yellow basket and fill it with yellow grass and all-yellow candy? Men, for one, I would surmise. No offense to the X-chromosome-challenged sex, but if there’s anything most every guy I know will vouch for it’s a penchant for simplicity. Those oversized holiday cards conveniently labeled “wife,” “aunt” and “for a great son” are not meant for the fairer sex. No, generally those are picked up by guys who don’t have the time, or the patience, to peruse the card selection and read what a card contains. So, I imagine color-coded Easter baskets would be a dream come true for most men.

The other customers? Those with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the types who crave like-colored things placed together. I have a second cousin who used to scream (the purple-faced, popping-out-neck-veins kind of screams) if his crayons got out of order while he was coloring. This monochromatic madness is for kids just like him. I’m sure he’d love nothing more than an all-blue basket this Easter. Now if only everything could be roughly the same shape and texture!

The vault
In other ranting news, you may have noticed from recent television commercials that “101 Dalmatians” has been released from the “Disney vault.” The idea of such a mystery-shrouded marketing tool strikes me as funny beyond words. The commercials are always roughly the same: Grainy footage of a faded Disney classic flits across the television screen as a voice-over informs unsuspecting sitcom viewers that the vault has been opened for the first time in 20 years and the Disney classic in question is now available for purchase on a very limited basis.

The announcer goes on to say that not only has the vault been opened, but the Disney classic has been restored to its original beauty with enhanced color and special DVD features. The commercial then closes with the threat that consumers better hurry and secure their copies of the classic before the vault closes again for another decade or two.

It’s very effective. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been half tempted to get up right then and there and run to purchase my coveted copy of “Lady and the Tramp” or “Cinderella.” Most recently, seeing the spotted mugs of those precious dalmatian puppies nearly has me sobbing. I can’t help but think of the kids I have yet to have who might be robbed of all 101 dalmatians, simply because their mom wasn’t sufficiently forward-thinking to reserve a copy before the vault closed for another 20 years.

Cheap medication on tap
On to more serious stuff, Associated Press reports this past week revealed trace amounts of pharmaceuticals – ranging from angina and epilepsy medications to depression and anxiety prescriptions – were found in the drinking supply of more than 41 million Americans. While the amounts are small enough to pass all federal regulations, the report went on to say that no one really knows what the effects of all these random, miniscule combinations of medications will be.

It’s not surprising, really. I just never thought much about it. I like to think of the whole thing as a literal glass-half-full situation – full of pharmaceuticals, that is. Instead of worrying about how all of this might negatively affect me, I’m instead going to choose to see this as a plus.

With rising health care costs, we’re lucky to be getting relatively free medications for the price of our water service. I don’t have high cholesterol yet – probably because I’ve been proactively treated through my water system. And without all this, who knows how bad my angina really would be!

(In the interest of full disclosure, Charlotte and its surrounding river basins were not tested. I have not yet tracked down the lovely folks at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities Department but I’m sure our water is fine. I also understand just how small these amounts are. I just never considered that I’m evacuating a bit of my antihistamine medication into the water supply every day. I’m such a jerk.)

My favorite part of the whole AP story was a summary of results, which found more than 50 different pharmaceuticals in Philadelphia’s water, for example. (Yay, Philly! Interestingly, no mention was made of cheesesteak by-products or the preservatives left over from Velveeta consumption.) And nothing but a “sex hormone” was listed in the San Francisco, Calif., water supply. Of course! It almost reads like a bad joke. If I had to guess what pharmaceutical would be found in San Fran’s water, it definitely wouldn’t be angina medication.

Holy smokes!
And, as two of the biggest holidays for my family approach – St. Patrick’s Day and Easter – I thought I’d remind everyone who cares to take it easy on St. Patty’s Day in light of the Vatican’s list of some “new sins.” Granted, they’re not really new; they’re just receiving greater attention this year. They’re getting the holy highlight, if you will.

This week the Vatican underscored the gravity of the sins of pollution, mind-altering drugs and genetic experiments. Looks like I’ll have to shelve the goat-cloning project I set up in the backyard.

I don’t mean to make light of creation or the protection of our resources – be they the ones in our skulls or the ones in our surroundings – and I do get the larger, overarching points the church is trying to make. Still, I think it’s a bit alienating to the common man to start spouting things like, “Greenhouse gas is a sin!” Well, yeah, it is and I’ll try to do better about buying a hybrid next time. But, man!

This year is a far cry from last year when the papacy released a statement denouncing road rage and offering something like a Ten Commandments for kind driving. How did I miss the memo on that one? It’s a sure sign of Satan’s firm foothold on my soul that my road rage has gotten increasingly worse in the past year.

And yes, I do believe the past four paragraphs have earned me a few extra decades in purgatory. A pint to the eradication of pollution, mind-clouding drugs and genetic disturbances this St. Patty’s Day!