A Dream Realized

When I was a child, I saw many animated television commercials featuring 3 colorful, effeminate monsters. These monsters convinced me to nag my mother to purchase General Mills monster cereals.

The triumvirate of cereals seemly included Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry. The Count and Franky were breakfast staples of my youth. Their marshmallowy goodness still holds a special place in my long term memory. Boo Berry, on the other hand, never made an appearance on my breakfast table. Did Mom have some kind of irrational hatred of the boo?

Fast forward to early 2005. My wife and I were watching one of our favorite TV Food Network programs entitled Unwrapped. Much to my delight, they featured an entire segment on Boo Berry cereal (I think that episode's theme was blue foods or some such). Besides lots of fun trivia about monster cereals, we also learned that Boo Berry can be hard to come by. For whatever reason the good folks at General Mills must have gotten their jollies by tempting kids with a fun cereal that they can't ever buy. Poor Mom...

Fast forward again to last weekend. My wife and I were shopping, infant in tow, at our local Stop & Shop. As we were cruising down the aisle of things on sale (yes, they have this at Stop & Shop), my wife, as if a shipwrecked sailor adrift at sea sighted land, announced a wonderful discovery - the elusive Boo Berry cereal. And it was on sale no less!

Granted, it was the whole grain version of the cereal, but I wasn't going to let that dampen my enthusiasm. There was no decision to be made - it instantly went into my shopping cart.

At the checkout counter a nice, older couple remarked how cute my 8-month-old daughter is, and made some small talk of that nature. When I put the box of Boo Berry on the conveyor belt, I mumbled some remark about the cereal being for my other kid. Of course, there is no other kid.

On Monday morning I finally got a chance to live my dream. You can imagine the 2+ decades of anticipation coming to a head as I poured the milk over the blue ghosts and colorful marshmallow apparitions. And then my first bite - exquisite! It was one of the few experiences in my life that have lived up to the hype. Oh that sugary goodness! That strange but delightful flavor of artificial berries! That mixture of crunchy and mushy! How wonderful it all was.

When my wife came downstairs she saw what I was up to. The grin on my face said it all. I had lived one of my childhood dreams by the age of 30.

Very Random Thoughts Today

- I saw a dude yelling at someone over a cell phone today in a tiny restaurant. I hated him very much.

- There was a young woman on the R train tonight with her blue jeans tucked into her black suede, fringed, and studded boots. She was transporting a 6 pack of Bud tall boys in a plastic shopping bag.

- I ate 4 Jamaican beef patties for lunch today - 2 spicy beef and 2 cheesy beef. De-fricken-licious.

- Americans have too many choices to make regarding over-the-counter cold and flu medicine. I mean, it's really ridiculous. We as a people need to acknowledge this and collectively do something about it.

- I truly don't care about my clothing selection other than whether I will be too hot, too cold, or ejected from wherever I am going because of my appearance.

Morning Thoughts

My mind doesn't work very well in the morning, and is occasionally given to some strange trains of thought. This morning was no exception.

I started thinking, for some reason, about Led Zeppelin. They were my favorite band through high school, but I probably haven't listened to an entire Zeppelin album in at least 10 years.

Then I started wondering how many Zeppelin songs I can name in a few minutes. I randomly set the bar at 30. After about 3 or 4 minutes of light thinking, I managed to come up with 32.

I don't know why I thought that would be interesting, but I did feel a small sense of accomplishment today. And all that before washing my face.