Happy Shapes

Man, I love cereal.

I have eaten cereal for as long as I can remember very nearly every day of my life. Probably not every day but damn close. You would think that by now I would be completely fucking sick of eating cereal. How much dry, sugary crap with skim milk poured over it can one man take? I have no answer to that question as I have yet to reach that limit in nearly 32 years of existing. I eat many varieties depending on my mood and my taste particularly when I am in the store making my cereal selections. Sometimes I feel like fooling myself a little and buy something that represents itself as being vaguely nutritious, Frosted mini-wheats, some variety of raisin bran or even better a raisin-nut-fiber concoctive will work. Other times I like to get some over-sugared, marshmallow laced crap.

There are many more varieties of over-sugared, marshmallow laced crap out there on the market. Growing up I was always a big fan of the monster cereals. You remember those, Frankenberry, Count Chocula, Boo Berry and occasionally (depending on where you were) you might find Fruity Yummy Mummy. To me, those cereals reigned supreme should you be in the mood for some marshmallowed goodness. The old standard in marshmallow cereals has been (and may remain today) Lucky Charms. I never liked them due to a shitty aftertaste and the notion that the cereal parts were bland, out numbered the marshmallows something like 6 to 1 and had the exact same shapes as the goddamn cat food. Poo on that shit.

These days, living in my own, private 'adult-a-verse' I have found myself adverse to the brand name cereals largely due to the fact that an average box of cereal in my area tend to run around 4 or 5 fucking dollars. Why does cereal cost so much these days? It can't possibly be the production of the actual cereal can it? How can that have changed so much over my short life?! It hasn't, you're paying for a brand name, it's aggressive advertising campaign and mostly because they will charge as much as you can pay. Which sucks.

My solution, generic cereals! Yes, one might feel a little sad shopping for their breakfast cereals from the metal bins near the end of the aisle. You know the bins because you pass them all the time and wonder why anyone would want their cereal in a plastic bag as opposed to all these bright colored boxes featuring characters that may have been with us all of our lives. I like saving a buck and I have no problem buying my cereal in a bag. Those bags are almost always re-sealable, ya know! I have many favorite generic cereals, plain old Frosted Mini-Bites is not bad at all, Tootie Fruties are better than Froot Loops if you ask me...But the best one, my favorite of all the generic cereals is hands-down Marshmallow Maties. Essentially, they are simply Lucky Charms without the Leprechaun. They have a Kangaroo wearing sunglasses as their mascot thus denoting that this fine cereal is supposedly Australian. I, however, ignore this Kangaroo and have long ago decided that Marshmallow Maties was produced and sold exclusively by a Pirate. THE Pirate, in fact. This Pirate has no name, he's not Redbeard or Captain Cock, no, no, no...He is THE Pirate and his bounty in life is this fantastic cereal available only in a plastic bag for (sometimes) almost half the cost of those wimpy, lame and catfood like Lucky Charms.

Whenever I would approach the bagged cereal part of the cereal aisle I always said under my breath (or to myself if others were nearby, the secret of my insanity must be kept!)

"ARRRRRRRR! Whar be my Marshmallow Maties, Arr!?"

I would find them and if they were on sale I might add a pleasant, "Blow me down! They be on Sale, Arrrr!" If they were priced a little higher than I thought fair, I would still buy them, but I might give a fair, "Shiver me timbers! Be this cereal made from gold, arrrrr?!" There has never been a day when my 'Maties' weren't there. That is, until about a month ago...

I have been living with a tighter than normal budget lately as I am saving up to get myself a leg up on my crushing debt. One day soon I will find my escape route, I have the map just need the cash. So, I jaunted into my local grocer as I often do with the intention of getting the absolute bare minimum goods that I will need to get through a lean weekend. I had about $25 and a tight list of items to acquire including my beloved Marshmallow Maties (Arrrrr!) I arrived at the end of the cereal aisle and perused the various metal bins. There was the Frosted Mini Bites, The Golden Puffs, The Honey Buzzers and all the rest but there was one noticeable absence...

"ARRRRR! WHARrrr BE MY MARSHMALLOW MATIES, ARRRRR?!?!"

They were gone. The sign was gone, the box they inhabited had bags of Golden Puffs in it's place.

I thought, "Well blow me down...arrr...?"

In a bin to the far left of where my 'Maties' were (arrr!) was a new bagged cereal...Happy Shapes.

"Happy Shapes?! What the FUCK are Happy Shapes?!" Even their bag was lame. It had a lion (I think) dressed up as a clown and juggling these supposed happy shapes above a big, shit-eating, you-ain't-gettin'-no-more-fuckin'-Marshmallow-Maties-Bitch Grin. Behind this "lion clown" was a single elephant and a single giraffe, there to mock me I suppose. The only thing going for this sad product was that it was actually even cheaper than the coveted 'Maties.' Knowing that I was jonesing for some marshmallow, over-sugared goodness I though it was time to branch out. So I bought the fucking Happy Shapes. All the while, I kept thinking about the letter I was going to write the Pirate, "Arrrrr, Dearrrrrrr Sirrrrrrrrr, I be writin' ye to find out wharrrr ye hid me Marshmallow Maties!?" Now is a good time for you, the reader, to stop reading a moment and look away from your computer monitor and say, "Arrr, Whar be my Marshmallow Maties!?" in your best pirate voice...You won't be disappointed.

See? Wasn't that fun? If anyone else happened to be around you at the time that may have made it even more better. Don't explain it to them, let them figure it out! That's why they have their own brain.

Back to the Happy Shapes...

Those fucking things are not really all that happy. In fact, after eating a bowl, the experience quite resembles an Easter basket filled with all the shittiest, cheapest, peep-like, stale-jellybean candies rotting in your mouth. Awful, crappy and bland and the I guess the only real happy shape is sort of a semi-rounded square. The one good thing is that the marshmallow to cereal ratio is like 2 to 1 so, at the very least, you get a lot of marshmallows in every bite. Trouble is that they all taste like sugary chalk. Ya know what else? Marshmallow Maties is made by a company that you know, Malt-O-Meal and you can tell because it says so right on the bag! Guess who made Happy Shapes? NO ONE! There is no company behind it, there is small print on the very back and bottom of the bag called AmeriValue but I cannot find it on the web. So, Happy Shapes came from nowhere! In fact, due to the way I live in my own "adult-a-verse" I wonder if perhaps only I can see and buy these Happy Shapes. Some people are psychic and see dead people, some people are double jointed and can bend in all kinds of funny ways, some people are talented and well connected and live happy lives...

Me?

I see Happy Shapes.