Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
Dan and I were good with our toys. While other kids in the neighborhood were leaving their Stomper trucks out in the rain and throwing their Rubik’s Cubes against the wall of the school at recess, we were giving our Star Wars action figures baths in the bathroom sink. I think it had to do at least a little bit with an awareness at a surprisingly young age that our parents were buying us these toys not only out of the goodness of their hearts, but out of the money in their wallets, and the least we could do was respect those little plastic acts of good parenting by storing them in a cool dry place away from the teeth of our pets when we weren’t playing with them.
We were, however, little boys after all. Our code of conduct toward toys only seemed to apply to toys that were paid for. So for one blissful, short period one summer, when boxes of Super Sugar Crisp cereal began a promotion featuring a free plastic figurine in the shape of the Super Sugar Crisp Bear inside the box, it provided Dan and I the opportunity to revel the immature need to destroy. On a clear sunny day on Dan’s front lawn, the Sugar Crisp Bear was captured by Imperial troopers and melted. In the realm of our imaginary world, the bear’s crime was treason, but in the real world, the toy’s only transgression was that it didn’t cost a cent.
After the first time, the act of destroying a toy ignited (no pun intended) fervor in Dan and I. We weren’t nearly about to start mangling our precious Star Wars toys, and it was quickly obvious to us that the best chance for us to burn a free toy again would come in the next box of Super Sugar Crisp cereal. Just like the commercial promised, Dan suddenly couldn’t get enough of Super Sugar Crisp. He doubled and tripled his usual morning intake. I would have joined in, but I found that cereal truly repugnant. Sure, I could have asked my mother for a box anyway, but obviously that would have been breaking the code. In essence, I would have been asking my mother to buy me the plastic figurine inside the box and not the cereal itself, thereby making the toy off-limits from destruction. Dan and I had very complex childhoods.
The wait between boxes of Super Sugar Crisp seemed like forever. Adding to the tension was the seemingly capricious nature of cereal free promotions. No child ever knew when one free item would begin or end, or stop and start up again. Different super markets got different shipments from different warehouses, and there was no guarantee whatsoever that Dan’s mother would come home with a box with that specific treasure inside. We really had three choices when it came to how to go about getting another plastic bear: One, Dan could ask his mother to be sure to pick up a box of Super Sugar Crisp that included the Super Sugar Crisp Bear inside. There was really no chance of this happening, as he would be risking his mother accusing of only wanting the cereal for the free toy. Dan and I had far too much pride to chance appearing as that kind of child. We may have started down a slippery slope by burning the bear, but we hadn’t lost all our senses. The second option would be for Dan to accompany his mother to the grocery store, which as anyone who’s ever been a child knows, is a special, unique kind of hell. The third option was difficult, but the one we chose to follow, which was to leave it up to fate. Somehow that always made it sweeter when we succeeded anyway.
We did indeed get lucky several times within the span of the promotion. When his mother would get home from the supermarket, Dan and I would, with the patience of people double our age, wait for her to put the groceries away. We would then sneak into the kitchen, open the cabinet, and find the new, bright blue, unopened box of cereal, with a little picture on the lower left hand side of the front of what we could expect to find inside. But what then? Wouldn’t it look suspicious to open a box of cereal in the middle of the day? Yes, we had to wait until the next day. He’d pour himself a bowl in the morning, and nonchalantly sift through the box of sugar-coated crispies to find that little plastic bag with the figurine inside. It would look nice and natural. Nothing to draw suspicion. We might even be able to convince ourselves that we were being completely reasonable. Deep inside though, we each knew we had little devils sitting on our shoulders.
Eventually, enough disappointing boxes of cereal came home in Dan’s mother’s brown bags that we had to admit to ourselves that our little private bear atrocities had come to an end. Dan’s daily intake of Super Sugar Crisp could now go back to its previous, safer level. But after it was all over, there was more than a couple small multi-colored puddles on Dan’s front porch. For a few months one summer, a large part of my and my friend’s satisfaction with life hinged on the contents of boxes of cereal. Or, maybe a truer way to put it is that the contents of boxes of cereal were just one more thing to be excited about along with all the other things we had to keep us entertained in the endlessly stimulating world of two little boys growing up in suburbia.
We were, however, little boys after all. Our code of conduct toward toys only seemed to apply to toys that were paid for. So for one blissful, short period one summer, when boxes of Super Sugar Crisp cereal began a promotion featuring a free plastic figurine in the shape of the Super Sugar Crisp Bear inside the box, it provided Dan and I the opportunity to revel the immature need to destroy. On a clear sunny day on Dan’s front lawn, the Sugar Crisp Bear was captured by Imperial troopers and melted. In the realm of our imaginary world, the bear’s crime was treason, but in the real world, the toy’s only transgression was that it didn’t cost a cent.
After the first time, the act of destroying a toy ignited (no pun intended) fervor in Dan and I. We weren’t nearly about to start mangling our precious Star Wars toys, and it was quickly obvious to us that the best chance for us to burn a free toy again would come in the next box of Super Sugar Crisp cereal. Just like the commercial promised, Dan suddenly couldn’t get enough of Super Sugar Crisp. He doubled and tripled his usual morning intake. I would have joined in, but I found that cereal truly repugnant. Sure, I could have asked my mother for a box anyway, but obviously that would have been breaking the code. In essence, I would have been asking my mother to buy me the plastic figurine inside the box and not the cereal itself, thereby making the toy off-limits from destruction. Dan and I had very complex childhoods.
The wait between boxes of Super Sugar Crisp seemed like forever. Adding to the tension was the seemingly capricious nature of cereal free promotions. No child ever knew when one free item would begin or end, or stop and start up again. Different super markets got different shipments from different warehouses, and there was no guarantee whatsoever that Dan’s mother would come home with a box with that specific treasure inside. We really had three choices when it came to how to go about getting another plastic bear: One, Dan could ask his mother to be sure to pick up a box of Super Sugar Crisp that included the Super Sugar Crisp Bear inside. There was really no chance of this happening, as he would be risking his mother accusing of only wanting the cereal for the free toy. Dan and I had far too much pride to chance appearing as that kind of child. We may have started down a slippery slope by burning the bear, but we hadn’t lost all our senses. The second option would be for Dan to accompany his mother to the grocery store, which as anyone who’s ever been a child knows, is a special, unique kind of hell. The third option was difficult, but the one we chose to follow, which was to leave it up to fate. Somehow that always made it sweeter when we succeeded anyway.
We did indeed get lucky several times within the span of the promotion. When his mother would get home from the supermarket, Dan and I would, with the patience of people double our age, wait for her to put the groceries away. We would then sneak into the kitchen, open the cabinet, and find the new, bright blue, unopened box of cereal, with a little picture on the lower left hand side of the front of what we could expect to find inside. But what then? Wouldn’t it look suspicious to open a box of cereal in the middle of the day? Yes, we had to wait until the next day. He’d pour himself a bowl in the morning, and nonchalantly sift through the box of sugar-coated crispies to find that little plastic bag with the figurine inside. It would look nice and natural. Nothing to draw suspicion. We might even be able to convince ourselves that we were being completely reasonable. Deep inside though, we each knew we had little devils sitting on our shoulders.
Eventually, enough disappointing boxes of cereal came home in Dan’s mother’s brown bags that we had to admit to ourselves that our little private bear atrocities had come to an end. Dan’s daily intake of Super Sugar Crisp could now go back to its previous, safer level. But after it was all over, there was more than a couple small multi-colored puddles on Dan’s front porch. For a few months one summer, a large part of my and my friend’s satisfaction with life hinged on the contents of boxes of cereal. Or, maybe a truer way to put it is that the contents of boxes of cereal were just one more thing to be excited about along with all the other things we had to keep us entertained in the endlessly stimulating world of two little boys growing up in suburbia.
Friday, October 06, 2006
The Pennsylvania Amish make me wish I was religious. Nothing else in the world does, but they do.
They aren't reading this obviously, and somehow that makes them even more special in my eyes. I could never do what they do, or live the way they live. But I envy them in a weird way. Except for the weird facial hair thing. A beard with no moustache? Don't get that at all.
But when some crazed outsider comes in to a single room school and kills and injures a bunch of their innocent children, they actually have the strength to turn to their religion and do what it says to do which, inconveniently, is the farthest thing from what anyone on Earth would naturally want to do: Forgive. They didn't look in their Bible for loopholes because this was a special case. They believed they had to forgive, and so they forgave.
It makes me realize what a strange limbo I live in, faith-wise. The fact is, I actually believe in a god, but I don't really feel the need to devote my life to pleasing him. And he's cool with that. With everyone else screwing it all up so bad, it seems more and more that the best way to go about leading a moral, guilt-free and complete existance is to steer clear of any church, temple, mosque, synagogue, or any other kind of shame factory. The world is one big giant place of worship.
They aren't reading this obviously, and somehow that makes them even more special in my eyes. I could never do what they do, or live the way they live. But I envy them in a weird way. Except for the weird facial hair thing. A beard with no moustache? Don't get that at all.
But when some crazed outsider comes in to a single room school and kills and injures a bunch of their innocent children, they actually have the strength to turn to their religion and do what it says to do which, inconveniently, is the farthest thing from what anyone on Earth would naturally want to do: Forgive. They didn't look in their Bible for loopholes because this was a special case. They believed they had to forgive, and so they forgave.
It makes me realize what a strange limbo I live in, faith-wise. The fact is, I actually believe in a god, but I don't really feel the need to devote my life to pleasing him. And he's cool with that. With everyone else screwing it all up so bad, it seems more and more that the best way to go about leading a moral, guilt-free and complete existance is to steer clear of any church, temple, mosque, synagogue, or any other kind of shame factory. The world is one big giant place of worship.
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