Now-a-days there is a motivational slogan/platitude/catch phrase for just about everything. "Just do it" "Look on the sunny side of life" "YOLO" "Dare to Dream" "Just keep swimming" "life is like a box of chocolates" " Hang in there" and "think outside the box" However, when it comes to October, I like to think inside the box. Deep, deep inside.
If you had any kind of decent childhood, or had children or grandkids who did, then you watched the show Duck Tales either after school or on Saturday mornings. Some of you may have even had the comics. Anyway, in the show, there was a character named Scrooge McDuck. He was very rich and had a room that was dedicated solely to housing his money. It was a very tall room with a balcony and a diving board. The room was devoid of decoration except for the money and there was nothing that Scrooge liked to do more than go swimming in all his gold. Even as a child I thought this idea was dumb. If you dove headfirst into a pile of metal you would kill yourself. But it was a cartoon so I went with it.
But what does some cartoon from the halcyon days of my childhood have to do with October Thoughts? Well, some people have a bucket list to visit Machu Picchu. Some want to sky dive, run with the bulls or take a picture with a celebrity. Me, I want to fill a pool with October monster cereal and swim in it. The realist in me knows that this would be extremely wasteful. I would have to donate the cereal to goats or a dog kennel or some other place that would take it. I'm not sure even I would want to eat cereal that I swam in. But the little kid in me, sees Scrooge swimming in his money and wonders why I can't do that with my breakfast cereal? I mean, cereal is a lot more pliant and less likely to kill me upon impact that gold coins. But since I can't swim in it, I will just have to settle for eating it out of a bowl like everyone else. Someday though......someday.
As a child I didn't care for so called "kid" cereals. You see, I was a 80 year old in a kid body. My breakfast of choice was Grape Nuts or Shredded Wheat (and not the frosted kind either). I liked Wheaties because they came with great prizes like wrist bands or mini basketball hoops. But give me a kid cereal and I just reached in, took the prize out and then left the remainder for someone else to eat. I was a weird kid, who grew up to be a weird adult.
Once I hit my 20's or so I started to like the kid cereals. But not just any kid cereals, the October cereals. I can't recall when I first came upon them, but it was magical. Count Chocula. Boo Berry, Franken Berry. Monsters in a box just waiting for me to devour them. (What a great reversal of the predator/prey complex. Scared of monsters, not this gal, I eat em for breakfast. Literally) Ever since that fateful day when I purchased my first box I was hooked. No more sensible breakfast cereal for me in October. Bring on the ingredients that I can't pronounce and the artificial colors and marshmallows. Milk just isn't the same if your cereal doesn't bleed its colors into it.
But just because I like it doesn't mean it is readily accessible. To be a true October cereal fan, you have to work for it. Every year the grocery store has a fun little game they play with me. It is called, where can we hid the cereal so that Rebecca can't find it. Never once has it been in the same place and often they move it around the store just to keep me on my toes. Sometimes I can sort of see the logic in where they place it, other times I think they just do it to mess with me.
This year I found it no problem at all a week before October. I dutifully bought my 3 boxes and put them in the pantry. I exerted great self control and didn't eat them ahead of time. Then I got the bright idea to use them in my Halloween décor. So now my 3 new cereal boxes and my two old boxes are proudly displayed. This did cause me a bit of a problem though. With my cereal being on display and out of reach, what was I going to eat for breakfast? So back to the store I went and wouldn't you know it, the boxes were gone.
Now, I am pretty sure I am the only one who really obsesses about October breakfast cereal. I don't think that in the week since I was last in the store they sold an entire pallet of the stuff, and I know I didn't buy it. So I checked the produce aisle (it has been lumped in with the potatoes before I kid you not) I checked the breakfast cereal aisle (where they NEVER are, cuz that would make too much sense). I checked the baking aisle, the ends of aisles, the front hallway and the place where they used to be just in case they had some sort of cloaking device on them that I of course hadn't noticed. No cereal. So I asked the first clerk I saw. He told me. Look at the front of the store. I told him, they aren't there. He looked confused and asked another clerk. She said, look at the front of the store. To which myself and the first clerk replied, they aren't there. The second clerk yelled across the store to the customer service rep, where are the monster cereals? And surprise, surprise, she yelled back. Check the front of the store. To which the 3 of us replied, they aren't there. Customer service yelled to a passing clerk and, well you get the picture. Finally someone asked the fellow at the meat counter who of course knew where the cereals were.................I'm building suspense....................they were in the................ frozen food aisle. Well of course, why didn't I think of that. Nothing says frozen peas and tater tots quite like a monster breakfast cereal. I guess they could be used as a topping for ice cream or waffles, but really, in a hidden corner of the frozen food aisle? Sigh. I guess that was better than the time they were hidden behind the Kleenex on a corner aisle and I only found them because I accidentally bumped into the display and dislodged enough that I saw the cereals. See, eating October breakfast foods is not for the easily discouraged. It's an endurance test that results in yumminess.
Anyway, the delicious trio was obtained and all was once again right with the world. In fact, I just enjoyed a scrumptious bowl of Boo Berry as I was typing this Thought. Isn't it funny how I had to grow up in order to enjoy a kids cereal, and it doesn't even have a prize. Though, the boxes now are kind of collectors items. This year, DC Comics has done special issues of each cereal. What a great blend, comics and my favorite cereals. A match made in October heaven.
At first I was cocky and thought that October had the market cornered on holiday breakfast cereals. But then I remembered Christmas. Christmas gets everything. I could only remember 2 holiday cereals for Christmas, but when I looked it up online there were 14, which kind of depressed me. But then I got to thinking. Christmas is overdoing it. No one cereal is good enough, they need 14. But October, October has 3 tried and true monster cereals. Sure, their used to be 5, and true, the boxes have been redesigned countless times over the years. Boo Berry looks kind of like a pale, somewhat stoned Frank Sinatra. The Fruit Brute used to look like a homeless hippi and now looks like a well coiffed jazz singer or 50's greaser. Count Chocula looked like either Ron Burgundy from Anchorman or a skeezy used car salesman from the 70's and now looks like you could sharpen knives on his cheekbones. The yummy mummy pretty much stays the same, though I don't know what ancient Egyptians would make a mummy multicolored and predominantly hot pink. But the one that is my favorite always somehow manages to look the most ridiculous. For the most part, Franken Berry looks like a pink monkey. This year his head looks like 2 pink loaves of bread with a smokestack attached. Or like Elton John. It is like a Rorschach test for breakfast cereal, I guess you see what you want to. In which case, maybe I need therapy.
But it isn't' what they look like that matters to me, it is the chase. The anticipation of the first cereal release date. The first sighting. The stalking of my breakfasty prey and the acquisition of it. It is all about the hunt and I love it. Who else do you know that hunts a breakfast cereal? Maybe I could mount the box carcasses on my wall when I am done with them. October trophies. Just one more decoration to add to my collection and that wouldn't hurt my feelings at all.
