Sunday, July 01, 2007

The Death Of A Cheerio

In Which We Follow A Whole Grain Oat Morsel On Its Brave Journey From Box To Watery Grave

9:30 a.m.: Everything begins normally. I awaken in my cardboard enclosure, surrounded by other Os. I am a bit crowded, as always, but otherwise calm. At 9:32, however, things take a turn for the eventful when a hand reaches into the box that has always been my home and pulls me out, along with a handful of my friends and relations.

9:40 a.m.: I am tossed unceremoniously into a small Tupperware container and given, along with my unlucky circular companions, into the small hands that will ultimately orchestrate my doom.

At first, it seems as though I will simply be eaten, not a fantastic fate, to be sure, but one that every cheerio knows it must one day face.

9:45 a.m : The maniacal ogre now in charge of my well-being has other plans for me. After tossing me and the remainder of my cheerio colleagues out of our tupperware and onto the couch, the small hands of doom descend and carefully select a single O (me, alas!).

9:47 a.m.: The being who has become the instrument of my destruction presses me against the lips and nose of his infant sibling, in a misguided attempt to feed me to her. When the baby merely looks quizzical, the tupperware container and I are chucked into her bassinet and left there. I begin to think that I will be one of those cheerios who gets lost in a fold of fabric, forgotten, and allowed to grow stale quietly and with dignity.

9:48 a.m.: Alas! May my brethren shed a thousand oaty tears for me that it is not to be! I am removed from the bassinet by the mother of my tormentor. The beast renews his interest and asks for "more?" in a manner that would put Oliver Twist to shame. The mother, using her questionable parenting skills, capitulates, and I am delivered back into the hands of cruel fate. I am the unwilling companion of The O Destroyer as he goes outside. After one brief glimpse of blue sky, I am flung by my gleeful captor into a bucket of sandy water, clearly placed there by the fiend in expectation of my coming. Nor am I the first O to be thus abused -- I can see two or three whole grain corpses drifting around at the bottom of the bucket.

9:50 a.m.: Just before sweet oblivion takes me, I see the hand that has destroyed my feeble oaty hopes plunge into the bucket once more. My last thought before I am masticated and can think no more is: "Dear God! After all that, he's still planning to eat me!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

o - :

Anonymous said...

O the Humanity !!!!

Unknown said...

RIP poor cheerio. May you reach the holy land where you will frolic in peace with the doughnuts, fruit loops, and lifesavers that have journeyed the same way as you.

(the HOLY land....get it?? )