"Damn FDA! Why Can't They All Be Marshmallows?"

If I were ever stranded on a desert island and could have only one kind of food, it would be breakfast cereal, hands down. The original Bachelor's Chow, it can be eaten any time of day, with or without milk, as a meal or as a snack. To enter my childhood room, you'd have to wade through ankle-deep, pointy disposable crappy toys that were utterly useless yet still were often the fulcrum on which my cereal buying decision hinged.

My love affair with cereal started with King Vitamin:


I could scarf down bowl after bowl of this stuff as a kid. I think I stopped eating it when I was around 8 or 9. Much later (about 20 years later), I tried it again...and I hated it. It wasn't as sweet as I remembered, and it nearly instantly turned to mush when milk was added.















Then around the time I hit the big One-O, the time in your life when summers get shorter and candy isn't as sweet, I switched to Froot Loops:



I remember I would stay up late in the summer with my friend, and we'd watch David Letterman while eating Froot Loops and drinking Cokes and laughing like crackheads...those were heady times...











Soon, though, I lost my fascination with Froot Loops and moved on to Cap'n Crunch...the hard stuff, with the crunchberries. I'm such a sugar-crazed junkie, wandering the cereal isle in the hopes a little kid might rip a box open and I can get my next fix off the supermarket floor.


This guy's still got his hook in me. I don't know how he sleeps at night trading in human weakness and tooth decay.


Plus, he also sails around in international waters with a boatful of children...you do the math.








Now, though, I apparently have grown up and matured, as my favorite cereal is Cinnamon Life. Simple and wholesome, but still with a little bit of sugar to give it a kick...now that's good eatin'!