My partner’s office had a cereal buffet the other day, and for some reason she took home all the leftovers. Froot Loops, Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Reese Puffs – basically the junkiest cereals around. All pure sugar, all delicious as such.
I like saying “my partner”. It makes people immediately wonder about my leanings, then they feel unwoke for caring one way or the other, and when they finally snap back to my story they have no idea what I’m talking about, which works in my favour because I don’t either. It’s easy to get distracted by your own brain while someone’s telling you a story, especially if that person is boring or your brain is interesting.
I hate when anything goes to waste. Especially food, and that includes the aforementioned junky cereal. So since the fateful day when the colourful rectangular prisms entered my home two by two, I’ve been putting serious dents into this cereal cupboard full of garbage.
I also got a onesie recently that I wear every day. I call it my o-knee-zee, like the o-knee-durs from That Thing You Do, because it reminds me of Tom Hanks before the pirates got to him.
Eating a bowl of Froot Loops using milk that’s turned brown from the remnants of a bowl of Cocoa Puffs while wearing a onesie and watching Pinky and the Brain at 11pm on a Tuesday makes the 10-year-old version of me extremely proud of what I’ve become. He never would have felt great about me going to work as a product manager and pretending it’s not so bad, but this moment would give him hope. I wish I had a daguerreotype of me at the table so I could send it back in time and put a glimmer in his eye. Maybe he wouldn’t make so many mistakes, if he only knew…