I’m gonna get you, Persephone Jones!

I’m gonna get Persephone Jones.* And if for some reason I don’t, I know about a million kids who will be happy to do it for me.

I should start by saying that Jones is probably a very nice person, though I’ve never met her and really can’t say for sure. So, why am I gonna get her?

Because she wrote a newspaper column a while back titled “Easter Baskets for a Healthy Bunny.”

In the column, Jones notes that kids today eat too much—surprise, surprise—junk food, especially around Easter, when Cadbury eggs dominate every supermarket checkout isle and jelly beans rain down like manna from Heaven.

“What is a health-conscious bunny to do?” asks Jones. According to her, a “typical” Easter basket equates to over 2,000 calories and 100 grams of fat. If you give young Bobby and Peggy Sue baskets of this sort, Jones implies, they’re going look like White Jumpsuit Elvis by the time they hit their teens.

To keep your children fit and trim, with a body fat index lower than your average Olympic gymnast, Jones recommends employing the same method used by runway models and Hollywood superstars: cocaine and bulimia.

No, wait, what I meant to say was “healthy treats.” She advocates healthy treats. The two words go together like “kumquat” and “unicycle.”

Jones concedes that foisting off health foods on kids expecting chocolate bunnies is not an easy task. “The key,” she writes, “is creativity.”

In Ms. Jones’ case, creativity means finding ways to convince your progeny that broccoli tastes every bit as good as Gummi Bears. She suggests filling plastic eggs with a mixture of peanuts, raisins and sunflower seeds, a “treat” known as “GORPS” (Good Old Raisins, Peanuts and Sunflower Seeds). By using an acronym, Jones hopes to fool children into thinking they’re eating something fun.

Now, you can mix liver, garlic and stale macaroni into a frozen paste and call it ice cream, but you’re not going to fool any kid I know. My guess is most kids will see right through that whole GORPS thing, too.

Jones also suggests filling plastic eggs with grapes, popcorn and mini pretzels. Again, stuffing something into a plastic egg does not make it taste like Jelly Bellys. I’m sorry, Ms. Jones, it just doesn’t. That goes for carrots, too, which along with apple and pear slices, is another “egg stuffer” on the Jones list.

Later in her column, Jones suggests giving kids—get this—Kiwi fruit for Easter. Because it’s shaped like an egg. Yes, really.

Now I don’t know about your kids, but my youngest would sooner stick a live hamster in his mouth than an egg-shaped, neon green, furry fruit from New Zealand.

Jones also advocates putting not vegetables, but vegetable seeds in the Easter baskets. That’s right, seeds.

I can just picture that Easter morning: “Mom, what are these?” asks little Peggy Sue, peering forlornly into the bottom of her near-empty Easter basket.

“Why, those are seeds, honey!” mom enthuses.

“Seeds?” asks little Peggy Sue.

“Yes, dear!” mom says. “You can plant them and grow your own carrots! Imagine! Then we’ll put the carrots in little plastic eggs! Won’t that be FUN?”

Peggy Sue goes on to grow up thin and fit, but spends the next 45 years in intensive therapy working hard to overcome her unreasoning hatred of rabbits. And her mother.

Finally, Jones suggests filling the baskets with Easter eggs—the decorated, hard-boiled chicken variety. Now, to me, this actually seems like a good idea.

If stored properly, in a nice, warm, moist location, by next Halloween those eggs will be just about ready for Ms. Jones’s front porch. I’ll bring the TP, kids! Let’s get her!

* Name changed to protect me from evil lawyers.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or offers for free marshmallow Peeps, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.