life is a bowl of cheerios

i think it is a fair statement to say that i think i owe about 3/4ths of the happiness of my childhood to sugary cereals. i mean, yeah yeah playing outside and climbing trees and chewing the feet of my barbie dolls was all in good fun, but really when i think back to being a kid, i repeatedly picture that beautiful bright yellow cheerios box. wait. cheerios? YES. cheerios. maybe not your typical tooth-rotting breakfast selection (i'll get to those momentarily), but when you combine the cheerios with sugar and raisins (in that order), the glucose-y goodness that forms at the bottom of that bowl is enough to make a rock bounce off the walls. hmmmm...mother, perhaps it was not wise to let me scoop my OWN sugar into the bowl, but that's water under the bridge at this point. even now, there is (almost) nothing i love more than cheerios and raisins, although the sugar has been replaced with one packet of splenda (hey, we have to grow up sometime, huh?). my other all time favorite is hands down lucky charms. on the rare occasion that my mom would bring one of those sweet red boxes home with the dancing leprechaun on it, man on man...i would pretty much go through the whole box in one sitting. because clearly, when you get to the bottom of the bowl and there is still milk in it, you have to pour in a little more cereal so you don't waste the milk. then, oops, there is too much cereal and it needs more milk, so just a liiiiiitle bit more and whaddya know, there is leftover milk in that bowl, too. it's an endless cycle, so i never blamed myself for eating 5 or 6 bowls at a time. i can't help it if general mills wasn't working with the bowl manufacturing industry on perfectly perportionate breakfastwares. they should have seen that coming. and of course, lucky charms have to be eaten a certain way to maximize the pleasure of all that sugary coated deliciousness. one must eat all the "luckys" out first, leaving a beautiful rainbow of slowly dissolving marshmallow charms floating in a grey/green pool of milk. WHAT COULD TASTE BETTER THAN THAT??? i ask you. go ahead and try. you won't come up with a good answer. lindsey, what do you want for breakfast? lucky charms. what do you want for lunch? lucky charms. what do you want for dinner? LUCKY CHARMS. ohhh ohhhh or frosted flakes. who would think that if you put sugar on your frosted flakes, they taste even BETTER. now that i think about it, i'm quite sure i spent the majority of my youth in sugar overload which i may be confusing with happiness. i was probably a miserable kid but i just couldn't tell through the artifically flavored haze i was in. and who wants to remember the bad parts about being a kid? not being able to reach the cabinets without climbing up onto the counter (wait, i still have to do that)?? only getting to eat dessert if you eat all your dinner first (i STILL remember that time i didn't get a doughnut and everyone else did, mom!!!)? who needs memories like that? i rather like the sugar-coated spin on my kidhood. although my sister will say i'm glorifying my life. because we DID have a pretty sweet childhood. no pun intended.