Cereal Killer

When I was a child I used to dread visiting my grandparents’ house. Part of this dread was because their house was filled with tacky souvenirs from Cuba and clowns made of seas shells and crocheted square dance creations and pictures from 1962. Part of this dread was because if we stayed more than 24 hours we’d end up leaving early in a huff because we couldn’t take it anymore and then we wouldn’t talk to them for two years. But the thing I dreaded most was what lurked inside their cereal cupboard.

My grandparents always made sure they had two types of cereal available. A box of Shreddies leftover from 1973 and a box of Rice Krispies that had always freshly been delved into. See, although most Grandmas bake delicious treats for their grandchildren and help them make gingerbread houses and serve ice cream for dinner, my grandmother somehow got the idea that Rice Krispie squares are the most delicious delicacy in the world. Despite my father’s pleas for homemade cheesecake and fudge (his favourites from his youth – also proof that my grandmother owns recipes) we would arrive and my grandmother would say in a sly manner “I have some treats I made for you!” as if we should dance with glee and twirl in a circle. In my younger years I would sometimes twirl as I would imagine a delicious land made of candy and joy. But then, alas, I would open the bread box on top of the fridge and inside would be a homely pan with some tinfoil plastered on top, emitting the sickly smell of marshmallow glue.

At first I enjoyed the Rice Krispies Treats, as my own mother did not usually make said desert because she actually loved me. But as the years passed, my enjoyment of Rice Krispies treats deteriorated almost as fast as my grandmother’s skill of making them. In the beginning, the Rice Krispie Squares were moist and delicious with the desired amount of viscosity and flavour. But as time passed my grandmother got lazy. She started skimping on the marshmallows and no longer insisted on using only the freshest cereal. Then she started making backup Rice Krispie square batches far in advance, so she would not have to rush about the day before her guest’s arrival. Her Rice Krispies got staler and staler. Then came the year of my Uncle’s wedding. All us children would be hanging out at my grandparents’ lair for a couple of days. This meant a higher quantity than ever of Rice Krispie Squares was needed. Clearly, moulding Rice Krispie Squares was not my grandmother’s priority, so she made the extra-large batch 10 weeks in advance to get it out of the way. So when the offer of a delicious desert treat was made to us children, we begrudgingly acted pleased and accepted the offer. Out came the pan and an old rusted butter knife and we were left to serve ourselves. When we plunged the knife into the snappy mass, the knife bent in half and the square remained intact. The Rice Krispie square had become a cement block. We had to use a makeshift chisel the burst the cement apart. Then we had to gnaw on these blocks, chipping our teeth and overworking our jaws. We felt obliged to eat the squares as we didn’t want to make my grandmother feel bad (especially since my grandfather had just ruined my uncle’s wedding) so we had to smash them off the kitchen table until they shattered and swallow the bits like jagged Krusty-os. We got through the first square, but then spent two days of my grandmother forcing us to continuously eat them (my grandmother believes that everyone should eat non-stop at all times). Then when it was time to leave she somehow cracked the block apart and sent little margarine containers full of Rice Krispie barf along with each of us.

But that is not why I dread the cereal cupboard, as the Rice Kripsie Squares are kept in the breadbox on top of the fridge as previously stated. I dread the cereal cupboard because I do not like Shreddies and I do not like Rice Krispies. And even though I don’t usually eat breakfast, as previously stated my grandmother believes that everyone should eat non-stop at all times. So one is FORCED to eat breakfast at my grandmother’s house even if they are not hungry. So because my mother knew that I was anti-Shreddie and anti-Rice Krispie, and I was usually a young child, my mother would invest in those 10-pack variety deals of the mini boxes of Kellogg’s cereals.

As a child I always found this to be exciting as these variety packs allowed me choice and the boxes were cute. But as I grew older I realized the inherent problems with the variety pack.

First of all, they have a bunch of cereals back to back so you can only see five when the package is on display. Of course they put the best ones at the front. So you see Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops and Corn Pops and Raisin Bran and think you’re getting a deal. But what you DON’T take note of is that in addition to these delicious brands you also get two boxes of Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Special K, and All Bran. The variety pack is just a SCAM to get parents addicted to the cereals their children refuse to eat! And you think you’re getting ten portions of deliciousness, but really half of the portions are despicable, and you could have saved money by just buying a singular box of the cereal of your choice.

So let’s say you don’t care about the scam and your parents happen to love All Bran, even though no person in their right mind would. There is still the issue of the actual eating process.

The entire point of the mini box is to avoid the unnecessary dirtying of a pristine bowl. So they perforate the box top so you can eat straight from the carton. First of all, they should probably avoid marketing something towards children that requires a big steak knife to saw open. I am sure many a child has been seriously injured when the knife slipped while sawing across Tony the Tiger’s face. Then when you open the flaps you find that you have sawed through all the cereal, ruining the loopiness of your Froot Loops and creating extra crumbs that made you shudder and dye the milk pink. And if you are a rather young child who is just mastering knife use, or perhaps even an overzealous Dad, there is a chance you would penetrate too deeply, nicking the white bag at the bottom. This leads to milk leakage and you stain your grandma’s placemat. Also, you have to use extra milk which is a waste of money, and transfer the remnants into a bowl which defeats the entire purpose. And the reason bowls are rounded is because it is much simpler to grasp milk and cereal in a circular motion. The mini boxes have corners that are difficult to dig in.

I just remembered a cereal that has ceased to exist. Remember Smacks? The ugly cereal with that beast frog mascot that talked like some barfing saxophone player? And the cereal pieces looked like dead crickets? I never tried that cereal because the commercials repulsed me. I wonder if they took it off the market because it was called “smacks” with has connotations of both drugs and violence. Or maybe it just tasted bad. Or maybe the frog got a promotion. It makes me sad when things go off the market. All the years spent on developing the recipe and designing the box and selling it to grocery stores and inserting toys and convincing children to beg their parents for it – all gone to waste. But I guess it’s their own fault for making a frog with a baseball cap on the mascot for an unappealing children’s cereal. Everyone knows reptiles don’t move product. A dolphin would have been a much wiser choice.

ET phone homeless.

Right now the local dump is being plagued with hundreds of non-biodegradable cell phones. Zack Morris might have loved his huge grey beast in 1993, but nowadays even Screech wouldn’t be caught dead with that thing. Nowadays kids need the cell phones with flashing buttons and digital cameras and mechanical arms and can openers. The phones must have the capability to download a Nelly ring tone and must fold to the size of the filling in your right molar. Now, the pioneer 10-pound cell phones are being tossed in the trash like Nelly’s old band-aids.

But the future landfill crisis is not the only fear that keeps me awake at night. The very streets I walk to get to school in the morning are landfills littered with their own style of useless, smelly trash – the homeless. As I cut through the park I am asked by a scruff with a shaky beard and a green dusted coat if I talk to God. I say no and ask God to make the man go away. I then pass a bench where a rather large fellow in a toque and popping eyes recites a little poem about symmetry. I quicken my pace, only to run into a chub woman with a hat with beads piled on it fastened with a bow who is muttering to herself about why she shouldn’t eat her toast. I was able to deal with these people until the other day when a man on the corner held a megaphone in my ear and yelled that he was happy I liked Satan because it meant God could love him more. While I have nothing personal against Satan, the megaphone was too much for me to handle. Although I have never been physically injured by one of downtown’s crazies, they interrupt my thoughts when I am pondering what flavour of tea I should buy from Tim Hortons and force me to quicken my pace when my knee hurts that day. I realize these people have mental and/or drunken problems and cannot help but talk to themselves and/or me, but it is very inconvenient. What if I was walking down the street and my future husband saw me talking to a homeless man and thought I was also homeless and thus never approached me to ask me on a date. We would never be married and our children would never be conceived. The homeless man has basically murdered my child!

Instead of proposing to send the homeless to jail for conspiracy to murder my child, I have arrived at a proposal that will save the taxpayers money, help the environment, and ease our unfounded fears of the people on our streets. I propose that we take all the broken cell phones from the dump and give them to the homeless.

It has already been proven that the homeless are incapable of making friends or finding true love. How often do you see homeless couples or homeless people at the movies? There is no hope for these people and they clearly insist on making the normies uncomfortable instead of keeping the insanity within their own circles of grossness. Cell phones cannot help the homeless achieve a higher state of mind, but they can help us normal people feel a false sense of security and avoid distractions as we proceed with our meaningful lives.

If a man is walking down the street talking to himself, you tense up and prepare to swing your umbrella in his face. But if a man marches at you while talking into a cell phone, you assume he is a successful business man and tip your hat at he scampers by. You clearly have no proof the man’s cell phone works, but chances are it does. If we donate useless broken cell phones to the homeless, we can also train them to hold the device up to their ears while muttering to themselves. So when the beaded hat woman trots by rambling about eating corn for dinner, I will assume she is arranging an important meeting with a client. And the really scary people who yell swear words will seem extra-important, as only a big CEO at a multi-billion dollar company would have the power to swear at someone without losing his job.

Not only will this ease our fears of walking the city streets, but it will improve the homeless image. Clearly the homeless are behind the times when it comes to fashion. Grunge was clearly out of style by 1995. But with trendy cell phones they will gain more respect in the community. Giving off an image of importance makes others believe you have power. With hope, if this test works out we can move up to giving the homeless unwanted ties and dented briefcases. By 2018 I predict our garbage problem will be down 5%, general fear on the streets will be down 75 shares, and respect for the homeless will be at an all-time high. And if there is one issue that is dear to my heart, it is respect for the homeless.

Silence of the humans.

I think people should stop speaking. This is definitely the best solution to all of society’s problems.

Do you actually care about what anyone else has to say? Sure, it might be mildly interesting, especially if the person is telling a story about how they were seriously injured, but will your life cease to go on if you don’t know how the story ends? Are you really going to suffer and lay awake in bed because you do not know your friend Gabrielle’s entire life story? Will this change you as a person? What happened in Gabrielle’s past will in no way affect what happens to you in the future. It makes no difference if she won the 1972 dance contest. And quite frankly, her opinions on who will win the next World Series aren’t helping either. She barely even watches baseball, so why does she think her guess is any better than yours? Her telling you she thinks the Pittsburgh Pirates will win can only lead to two possibilities. A) you agree, B) you do not agree. Either way, the world has not been changed except 10 seconds of your life are gone that you will never be able to reclaim.

When other people speak it just gives you less time to think. And then when they finally shut up all you can think about is what an idiot they are. It hardly seems fair that just because someone likes the sound of his own voice he should be able to hold your mind hostage and infest it with his words. If nobody spoke people could think all the time and society would be much more advanced. We probably would have found a cure for AIDS by now if Marvin didn’t keep talking about his damn son to the other scientists. People are dying and yet speaking is a priority! What kind of sick world do we live in?

Dating would be much easier if there was no talking. You wouldn’t have to go through all the horrible conversations at the beginning. Sure, you would never know if you actually liked the person, but that really wouldn’t matter because you would never be able to fight anyway.

And just think of the poor people in society who have speech impediments or are already deaf. Right now they are the scum of the earth, kicked aside when any old regular talker comes waltzing through town. But if no one spoke, everyone would be equal and the world would be a much happier place. And besides, some people have loud and annoying voices and I want to rip out their vocal cords. Silence = safe vocal cords for everyone.

Students everywhere would be able to get their homework done because they would not be talking about boys on the phone. And there wouldn’t be any children screeching in the park across the street to give them a headache. They would also have a much easier time in school because they could never get in trouble for not listening or talking in class. And no one could really make fun of the loser students who still bring lunch in a lunch pail. Verbal abuse would stop, and now physical violence would be the only resort. One step at a time.

Telemarketers would be unable to phone. You wouldn’t have to worry about not understanding the voice at the Wendy’s drive-through. You wouldn’t have to decipher confusing accents. No one would be ale to ask you for spare change as you peacefully trudged to work. Nickelback would go out of business. And if you asked someone to dance at the school prom he wouldn’t be able to say his leg was broken.

If no one spoke there would be no disagreements and no fighting. We would all be happy and could just live in our quaint houses sipping tea and petting cats. We could all assume we were right about everything, which would make us feel more intelligent, and self-esteem would be at an all-time national high. We would no longer have to dread going out in public because someone might say hello, or because we might see an attractive male and have to act all suave. The world would be a precious utopia and we could frolic about in silent glee. Wars would cease. Social awkwardness would be a disease of the past. You and I would at last know true happiness. Well, unless you’re blind. Which you aren’t, because you’re reading this. So there.

Grandpa University

There are many things I hate about journalism. I hate the fact that I have to interact with human kind. I hate the fact that I cannot blatantly lie. But the thing I hate the most is telling people I am a journalism student. I try to withhold this precious information as long as I can, but if someone asks me what I do it is my journalistic duty to tell them the truth. Luckily, most people do not acknowledge my existence and shove me out of the way so they can get on the subway first. I don’t mind, as I am not in a rush and they could be on the way to their child’s ballet audition, and I really don’t want to talk to the random stranger anyway. But there is one segment of society that is never in a rush, never takes the subway, and never has a child at a ballet audition. This segment always has time to not only acknowledge that I do indeed exist, but to delve into my life like Jessica Fletcher into a murder. This segment is the grandpa segment.

It happens everywhere. I might be sitting calmly in a seat at the theatre, or scrounging through a bucket at a garage sale, or standing in line waiting to vote in the federal election, when some random grandpa who I have never seen before ponders over with a wise little grin.

“Well, isn’t that a pretty smile if I ever did see one myself if I do say so!” he scruffs. I do not like talking to random people for a journalistic assignment. I do not even like talking to my friends. So why should I be forced to converse with some random grandpa just because he is having a lonesome afternoon? But you can’t ignore a random grandpa – perhaps I am a spitting image of his wife Helena who just passed away two months earlier. Besides, many grandpas are from the olden days when murder didn’t exist and everyone was friends, so turning away in disgust might confuse him and cause him to vote for the wrong person, changing the country’s political fate forever. So I must acknowledge, and thus I squiff some homely rat noise and my eye twitches because I know what is about to come.

“So then, what high school do you go to, young lady?”

“Actually, I am in my final year of university.”

“My! But you look like you’re only 12 years old! When you get to my age you’ll be happy! Heheheh. COUGH. So, what are you majoring in?”

“Journalism.”

“Ahh, so you want to be a writer! I can tell you love writing!”

“Actually, I am in BROADCAST journalism.”

“Ahhhh, BROADCAST! So, you want to be one of them beautiful lady news anchors and read me the news every night as I eat my broccoli stew!”

“Um, actually . . .”

“OH! I know! You want to go overseas and be a foreign correspondent in Iraq! Oh, you be careful! You know how the people over there are with their guns and other languages and such!”

“ACTUALLY I am more interested in camerawork and editing.”

“Oh (insert look of utter disappointment, confusion and disgust) . . . well, you know Maricia VinKenny?”

(Okay, just because I am a journalism student does not mean I WATCH THE NEWS!!! I hate the news. And clearly I have never heard of this person in my life.)

“I think I’ve heard of her.”

“Yes, well when she was at CBC she started as a lowly cameraperson, too. Then, ONEDAY CNN offered her a MAGICAL job as a REAL reporter like you see in the movies! Her soul was saved! And you must have seen that controversial interview she did with Palestinian Foreign Commissions Leader, Rabutal Maghastan.”

“Actually, no, I did not see that interview.”

“YOU ARE A JOURNALISM STUDENT AND YOU DID NOT SEE THAT INTERVIEW!!! How could you? You’d better not tell your teachers, because they would be very disappointed! As a journalist you have to watch everything! You have to read every newspaper everyday! That is the only way you’ll know what’s going on in the world! You must LOVE the news! Otherwise you will FAIL and you will live a MEANINGLESS life of NOTHING! You must read every book ever written and carry around a notebook so you can write down everything you see! For instance this conversation with me – THIS could be a story!”

So it could be.

Now, this tale of woe goes against the ethics of journalism as I have created a composite character of a grandpa, though everything said (except those made-up names) has ACTUALLY HAPPENED at various times. Maybe someday they’ll make a movie about me. But the POINT is that FIRST of all, WHY must the grandpa ASSUME that just because I am a journalist I want to write for some big boring paper for the financial section! Granted, in 1929 they only had the big paper presses, but how dare he. And SECOND and MOSTLY of all, how DARE this random grandpa, who has clearly done nothing with his life since he is spending his Friday afternoon sitting at a voting table watching people drop slices of paper into a firmer paper cube, give ME advice on how to be a journalist! HE IS NOT A JOURNALIST! I KNOW MORE THAN HIM AND I DON’T CARE HOW OLD HE IS!!! I paid $5000 a year to learn from ACTUAL journalists – could it be that all I had to do was hang around enough bus depots and I could have had my entire education AND MORE free! Perhaps instead of ethics class, we should have grandpa class and just invite random grandpas off the street to tell us how to be better journalists. In fact, why don’t they just create GRANDPA UNIVERSITY and have an entire school based solely on the teachings of random grandpas. It would be cheap, as there would be no campus. Every class would just be a field trip to a craft sale or mall food court. And the grandpas still think a quarter is a good tip, so they wouldn’t have to be paid much. At the end of two weeks you could get a degree, typed in an extra-large font, to hang on your wall above your orange needlepoint wall-hanging. You could go into the work force at a much younger age, and if you work at one of those places that does mathematical tricks to help you retire early, you could be retired by the time you’re 53! And the sooner people retire, the quicker they’ll get lonely, and the earlier they’ll become a nuisance to society, and the more readily available the next batch of grandpa teachers there will be. If only my name were on the ballot.