31; cereal games

I was a ruthless whaler. The pods would scurry away from my whaling ship with the sluggish deliberation, darting at the last moment, but always falling prey.

Never mind that the whales were cereal flakes and the analogous Pequod a spoon. I devoured them whales. It was fun. Sometimes the whales were the last of the dinosaurs, or occasionally forests. I was an equal opportunity destroyer. You had to be in your cereal games. The little flakes/rings/puffs/crispies/marshmallows/whatever-the-hell-they-put-in-cereal-these-days were about to meet their timely demise in your relentless maw. If the demise was not timely then the creatures you were wiping out would become soggy. Soggy and Captain Ahab don't mix.

I wonder at times if children do this all over the world. The urge to play is certainly felt throughout the world's population of children. Of course not all eat cold cereal for breakfast. Some don't eat breakfast at all, but I like to pretend that they're making up for it with a big lunch. If they're not eating either it's simply too depressing for this article. And the cereal must be cold, hot cereal only works for different kinds of games. Oh no! That's no ordinary Cream of Wheat! Beware the Mutant Alien Blob! Of Death!

Cold cereal: Interactive. The pieces can escape from your spoon. They are to children, who do not hunt for their food most of the time, like the patient bugs on the Serengeti played with and pounced upon by lion cubs. Bugs, cereal, playing with your food, lions. It makes sense to me.

Toast is only interesting if airborne. Eggs? They just melt. You could pretend that the yolks are Chernobyl and the whites the surrounding country-side, but that seems a little morbid. Also your parents might notice you staring at running yolks and mumbling under your breath and get suspicious. Attacking cold cereal whales is all part of the process of trying to eat the darn things.

Grapefruit is interactive, but not in the way anyone wants. Grapefruit is a fruit best enjoyed alone with no one in a thirty-foot squirt radius. Eyesight will be lost, families will be destroyed.

"Why'd you squirt grapefruit juice in my eye?"

"I didn't mean to!"

"Ow! You just did it again!"

"Hee hee hee."

"Jefferey eat your cereal while your sister's at the table!"

*Mumbling*: "No! Noo! Save us! But the mighty T. Rex was no match..." *nyom nyom nyom*

Of course 'grapefruit' and 'enjoyment' are words I don't often combine in the same sentence, but then again neither are 'enjoyment' and 'cranberries'; yet if you combine the juice of the two it is quite delicious. And with that tidbit of wisdom I leave you for the high seas. Will we be whalers today, or lumberjacks? Only my cereal bowl may tell...