So I didn’t want them anymore
Feted on June 23, 2024.
When I was nine, my dear Mamårp told me I could have all the Frosted Flakes I wanted, if I was a good little Pnårp. But then my sister kept sticking her feet in the bowl so I didn’t want them anymore.
Then I got lost one day, wandering the cereal aisle at the Spend-O-Mart. I built a fort out of cereal boxes (no one noticed) and hid inside until the store closed. Then I climbed into one of the boxes (they were really big boxes back then) and hid inside until the store reopened. Then I crept into the bakery section and discovered something that would change my life forever. There were other things to eat besides Frosted Flakes!
Then I developed a liking for oatmeal cookies.
When I was ten, my dear Mamårp told me I could have all the oatmeal cookies I wanted, if I was a good little Pnårp. But then my sister kept sticking her feet in the oatmeal cookies so I didn’t want them anymore.
Then the oatmeal cookies came to life and began plotting my demise, so I wanted them even less. (And to this day, they keep doing this.) Recurrent night terrors of Katy the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant, and Newt the Gnu stomping me flat under their own feet made me eschew Frosted Flakes permanently. Horrifying dreams filled my smooth, supple mind nightly: Dreams of being drowned under an endless deluge of Frosted Flakes while malevolent oatmeal cookies and Tony the Tiger’s friends looked on in sadistic glee. Dreams of being choked with so many Frosted Flakes that they started coming out my nose—until I burst at the seams. Dreams of the entire world transmogrified into nothing more than one gigantic, laughing oatmeal cookie, orbited by vigintillions of Frosted Flakes, each individual flake having the sole, monomaniacal purpose of annihilating this Pnårp from the Universe forever.
Where did these dreams come from? Why did I awake squeeorling each morning, darting from my bedroom for dear life and ensconcing myself behind the toilet, unwilling to come out until my dear Mamårp again convinced me oatmeal cookies cannot come to life (lies!) and Frosted Flakes are just blobs of corn meal smeared with blobs of sugar?
I wondered if my sister’s feet were magic. Had she put a hex on me with them? Or maybe it was all the fungus I had started eating instead of Frosted Flakes and oatmeal cookies. The woods were full of fungus, and with my other options so severely curtailed, it was the only thing left for me to eat. I never found out for sure. Perhaps I never will.
Then I developed a liking for bagels.
When I was eleven, my dear Mamårp told me I could have all the bagels I wanted, if I was a good little Pnårp. But then my sister kept sticking her feet in the bagels. I didn’t want to give up bagels so I just started liking girls’ feet, too.