Don't Mess with the Cap'n!!!!!

A friend of mine pointed my nose at an article that really hit close to home with me.  This article brought sadness, despair, anguish, and depression into my life.  So out of this intense sadness, I thought I had better "puke" about it to maybe, just maybe, make the pain go away.  What in the world could affect my life so greatly?   What national crisis is taking me to the brink of chaos?  Who could drive me to my blog in such a quick fashion, even quicker than Charlie "Whack Job" Sheen did?  Well the answer is quite simple folks.  Someone is messing with the CAP'N!!!!!  

"Who's the Cap'n?", some of you might be asking, because I can feel your blank stares right now.  This is the Cap'n that I am talking about.

The man of the hour, the man with the plan, the man with enough sugar to let you sail around the world twice in an hour, the man that was the "Red Bull" of my generation, the one and only  CAP'N FREAKING CRUNCH!!!!!

So I read a report that our First Lady, Michelle Obama, is running a campaign to get sugar out of our lives.  First off, STAY AWAY FROM MY SUGAR MICHELLE!!!!  and second, Don't Mess with the Cap'n!!!  Due to this pressure, Cap'n Crunch is in danger folks.  There have been shots across his bow!  He is now fighting the Obama Sugar Brigade in a battle that could be his last.  That's right!  Forget World War I & II, The Battle of the Bulge,  and New Coke vs. Old Coke!!!  We are at war people!!!  Obama vs. The Cap'n!!!  VIVA LA CAP'N!!!!

And it is not just the Cap'n she is messing with.  If she is able to sink the Cap'n, then how long before she sets her sights on Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, or any other mascot that represents a sugary cereal?  Leave our cereal alone Washington! 

Growing up, there was nothing as sacred to us kids as our relationship we had with our cereal.  We lived for it, we craved it, and needed it.  We would wake-up, relieve ourselves, head to the kitchen (washing hands was for sissies),  grab our bowl, spoon, milk jug, and our cereal.  It was our routine and you didn't mess with it.  Once we had our cereal, we would then head to the TV to watch a cartoon because the two went hand and hand together.  Cartoons and Cereal was like coffee and the paper to adults.  You just HAD to do it that way.  Until I got that 94 grams of sugar in me, I wasn't worth a thing.

Now what kind of cereal you had was part of the fun.  (Unless you had parents that just bought the "healthy" ones that NOBODY liked.  I feel sorry for you if this was the case and good luck with the therapy)  There was a whole routine that would take place when it came to cereal.  We could go to the grocery store with our mother and we would wait for the five best words in the English language at that moment, "Go pick out your cereal."  WHOO HOO!!!!  Cereal picking time!!!  Us three kids would run off towards the cereal aisle like we were participating in the Running of the Bulls.  "Get out of our way lady!  We are heading to the promised land."  was our battle cry.   We would sprint past the canned vegetable aisle, baking good aisle, paper product aisle until we found our Mecca. . . The CEREAL AISLE.  A land of sugary goodness and the promise of a toy in every box.

I can remember looking down that isle and actually shaking from the excitement that was coming.  I was about to walk the line up of colored boxes and pass judgement on each and every one of them until I found the perfect one to bless with my company.  Of course, I could rule out ANYTHING that was on the top two shelves because those were the adult cereals that made promises like, "Fiber Loaded" and "Healthy Heart".  I wasn't interested in those because, A) I didn't know what fiber was and B) I wanted a racing heart not a healthy one.  Then there were the evil ones that you learned to avoid.  Ones like Life, Raisin Brand, Wheaties and Frosted Mini Wheat's because they sucked you in with their commercials once. . . only ONCE!!!!  Yeah they looked cool, but they were healthy for you and you just didn't trick a kid like that.  I hated when I fell for their advertising gimmick and had to spend the rest of the weeks eating tiny little Brillo Pads that would make my poop feel like steel wool coming out of my tiny tushy.  I think I figured out what fiber was for. DANG YOU EVIL ADVERTISERS!!!

I would then stand there and mentally yell out to all the boxes, "What are you going to give me if I pick you?"  I was the judge, jury, and executioner in this sugar land of goodness.  This was back in the day when cereal was the equivalent of a huge box of Cracker Jacks.  You got some form of crappy toy in the box that could really sway your decision.  You see.  If I was looking at Sugar Smacks and they offered me a real compass with belt clip or Fruit Loops with a pencil, well the compass would win every time because a pencil is boring and a compass could help me find my way home again if I was ever lost in the woods behind my house.  DUH!!!!  NO BRAINER!!!! 

Of course, there were a few pitfalls that you would learn about once you were "blinded by the light" of the promised gifts inside the box.  There were mail away toys that would trick us.  There was nothing worse in the world than seeing a free Fruity Pebbles Frisbee on the outside of the box only to rush home and find out once you had dumped all the cereal out on the floor and ripped the box in two that there was no Frisbee to find.  Then you would do a little more research and see those horrible, terrible words. . . "Mail in 950 box tops to receive your Frisbee".    @#$%!!!  The Flintstones just tricked me.  I could have had the decoder ring but NO, I fell for the mail in scam!!!   "I hope Dino drops a huge "gift" in your rock house Fred!!!  I hope you step in it too.  I hope Barney drowns in it because he's small and it could happen!!!  Die Flintstones, DIE!!!"  Oh how I hated that trick and if I could have scooped all the cereal off the floor and taped the box back together to return it, I would have, but Mom wouldn't let me.   Who mailed those box tops in anyways?

The prize didn't always affect your decision.  There was also taste, color, and sugar coma potential to take into consideration.  After all, you were going to be stuck with this box for the next week and you wanted to enjoy it too.  Did you like marshmallows? letters? stuff that would turn your milk a different color? "berries?" (don't worry, they had nothing to do with actual fruit) cookies? All these things made it tough to pick out the perfect one.  I had my "go to" group that would always satisfy my little sugar addiction.  The monster cereals: Boo Berry, Franken Berry, and Count Chocula, The Cap'n fleet of goodness: Cap'n Crunch, Peanut Butter Crunch, and Crunch Berries,  and some of the main streamers like Lucky Charms, Coco Puffs, and Sugar Smacks  (because you knew you were in for a good time when the word SUGAR appeared in the name).

So once you had chosen your fate, you would rush home just counting down the minutes until morning would come and you could attack your box like a starving kid from Ethiopia.  Truth be told, I wasn't really a big fan of the original Cap'n Crunch cereal.  I know I started this defending him, but it's more the sacred institution of cereal than specifically THAT cereal itself.  My biggest complaint with the Cap'n was that they didn't tell you all of the ingredients that was in that cereal and they didn't give you a warning label as to the side effects of eating it.  Sure there was sugar, sugar, and sugar, but I will go to my grave swearing that there was also tiny shards of glass, asbestos, and steel wool in there.  If you have ever eaten the original Cap'n Crunch you know what I am talking about.  You would eat that bowl down and then all of a sudden you would notice a weird sensation coming from the top of your mouth.  It was like hundreds of little strings hanging down, but instead of strings, it was really your skin.  Yep, the roof of your mouth looked like it had been sand blasted and you were left with only one layer of skin before you hit bone.  Talk about painful!!!!  Heaven forbid your mom made you any hot chocolate that day.  That molten chocolate goodness would hit your raw mouth and just about make you pass out from the pain due to the nerve endings that were exposed.  So, sorry Cap'n, you were a cruel sailor to me.

We all had our little routines and hopefully by reading this, you are remembering yours.  If I was eating a cereal that had marshmallows or crunch berries in it, I would eat all of the boring part of the cereal and save the marshmallows or berries for last.  Yeah it took some patience, but the reward was great at the end.  You would be left with just colorful goodness that was soaked full of milk.  YUM!!!!  I would get so angry if a marshmallow would stow away on the bottom of my spoon and I wouldn't catch him, because marshmallows are men, before I bit down on him.  AHHHHHHH!!!  That was one less at the end for me to enjoy.   (On a side note, the Cap'n brought out a cereal called Oops. . Just Berries and I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  I did buy myself a box and guess what?  It wasn't fun. I guess the thrill of the hunt was part of the enjoyment too.)

Then once all the cereal was gone and you were left with this white, hazy, speckled, multi colored liquid, this was truly the Holy Grail of the whole experience.  You had 50% milk and 50% sugar left in your bowl.  Could life get any better?  NOPE!!!!  I would see people not finish it and that would make my little 10 year old body hurt, I would see the ones that used their spoon to drink the rest of the milk and that would drive me crazy because it took FOREVER,  Not me,  I grabbed that bowl like it was the Stanley Cup and would drink it down savoring every swallow.  Milk would pour from out the sides of my mouth, but I didn't care.  I was a caveman at that moment and I was finishing my kill by drinking the blood.  Then I would sit back, let the sugar rush through my veins, and finish watching whatever cartoon I was watching at the time.  LIFE WAS GOOD!!!

So to you First Lady, I say, "Leave us alone.  Leave the sacred institution of kid induced sugar comas intact."  I don't want to live in a day that a child asks me for fruit and vegetables for breakfast.  IT AIN'T RIGHT I tell you!!!  In fact, I still find myself enjoying a wonderful bowl of Cocoa Puffs, Crunch Berries, Peanut Butter Crunch, and Golden Grahams for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  So if you take this joy from my children, you are also taking it away from me.  DON'T MESS WITH ME LADY!!!!  How about we work on the price of gas?  There is something I can get behind?  Maybe we could use the left over milk as a fuel source because I sure know it kept me running all day long.

So go ahead and mess with the Zohan (horrible, horrible movie reference), just DON'T MESS WITH THE CAP'N!!!!

Smile!!!