Faustian deals with the devil centering around the exchange of one’s soul for the promise of some unattainable desire have been an integral part of our culture’s popular mythology for centuries. Myths about men like Delta Blues pioneer and forefather of rock ‘n roll Robert Johnson, who supposedly sold his soul to Satan in exchange for otherworldly mastery of the guitar, pervade the folklore of our nation. This protestant perversion of the ancient Arabian Nights genie tale has an uncanny ability to capture our collective imagination because of the seductive qualities of the moral problem that the myth examines. Most of us, if we were being truly candid, would fess up to a playfully devious urge to slough off our souls in favor of Casanovan sex appeal or Jordanesque ball skills. But, what happens to this fantasy if the trade in question is pathetically lopsided? What happens if the mortal soul in question is bartered for an everyday convenience like a six-pack of Dr. Pepper or plate of dynamite shrimp at P.F. Chang’s? I can only hope that the devil has some remnant of compassion left in him for the simpleton who makes such an ill-advised exchange, as I am one of their number and would very much like to avoid an eternity of sulphuric agony.
When I was ten years old I, like most other children, possessed both a gross underestimation of the importance of my incorporeal being and an insatiable hunger for sweets. While playing Sega Genesis with my best friend one afternoon, I noticed and immediately began to covet the fun size package of Now & Laters that he had with him. With nothing of value on me at the time, I decided it would be wise to search within myself for something that I could use to coax him into parting with his candy. As you have no doubt guessed by now thanks to my unparalleled ability to foreshadow, what I opted to offer him was my freshly minted soul and before long we sealed the deal in writing in a post-it-note. Even as a ten year old I should have realized that this was a shit deal as Now & Laters are an absolutely dreadful candy manufactured to be perpetually stale and to be of a consistency so that the bulk of the candy get stuck in the grooves of your molars as opposed to sliding down your gullet. On top of that, the flavor that my friend had that day was grape, and like almost all artificially flavored grape candies it was designed to taste like congealed Robutussin. The one bit of solace I can glean from this ordeal is the fact that while my friend can be a devious little bastard at times, he is most certainly not the Prince of Darkness and thus incapable of damning me to hell. However, he does now posses a surplus soul with which he can barter with the devil at his leisure, leaving me up the river Styx without a paddle.
While I doubt that my soul is currently in the devil’s possession I feel as though there has been some karmic retribution for my actions. A very common occurrence among individuals who are in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction is a phenomenon known as cross-addiction wherein the ex-junkie in question shifts his unhealthy behaviors from revolving around his drug of choice to a different drug, recreation or object To wit, a disproportionally large number of alcoholics and addicts become obsessed with triathlons and ultra-marathon runners as it is a fairly seamless transition from fixating on getting your next fix from a substance to getting a comparable rush from over exercising. Cross-addictions can run the gamut from gambling to overeating to becoming a workaholic. In my case, the potential cross-addiction has appeared in the form of an insatiable craving for a specific type of hyper-sugary carbohydrate, cereal.
You try telling me that the Trix Rabbit isn't a junkie
I totally acknowledge the fact that becoming consumed with a desire for a breakfast food is absurd, but that doesn’t stop it from being any less true. I’ve always had an abiding love for cereal, or at least as constant a love as one can have for a simple carbohydrate. Most nights I could be found hovering around my kitchen in the dark, greedily shoving handfuls of Kellogg’s Smart Start down my windpipe and chugging skim milk from the carton like a dog inhaling his dinner for fear of his master snatching it away before he had a chance to finish. However. In recent months my passion for cereal has expanded into an all-day affair, sometimes spanning all three meals. A great deal of this spike in cereal consumption has to do with my surroundings.
The kitchen in the house where I currently live is downright palatial. It has a restaurant style industrial refrigerator and a walk-in pantry that’s almost the size of my freshman dorm room. Of course, to go with such mammoth storage space, the kitchen has been stocked with a plethora of various foodstuffs, including the cereal that has come to hold dominion over my culinary existence. Now, there aren’t simply boxes of cereal lined up in the cupboard, but in their stead stand five large plastic containers filled with a rotating assortment of grainy goodness that seems to replenish itself by magic. And these containers aren’t full of flaxtastic, bran-based, organic cardboard cereals, but is chock full of the sugary favorites that threaten to further spike our nation’s levels of type II Diabetes. Everything from Frosted Flakes to Captain Crunch to Lucky Charms, all brimming with glucose and absolutely devoid of nutritional value aside from the 25% daily-recommended intake of Riboflavin that is prominently advertised on the cereal box to provide the illusion of wholesomeness. The variety is truly a thing of beauty and I have taken to trying out every conceivable mix-n-match combo that is possible like a kid mixing Mountain Dew and Pepsi at a soda fountain in search of the ultimate soda (so far the best arrangement I’ve found is a solid foundation of raisin bran, covered with a middle layer of Honey Bunches of Oats and topped with Captain Crunch).
Making matters worse is the construction of the cereal containers, which were made with a little plastic lever that you push down on like a lab rat seeking some Pavlovian treat. It’s like getting one of those little bouncy superballs out of the gumball machines at the front entrance of restaurants, only I don’t have to pay fifty cents to get it. Many a time have I been caught by one of my peers in the pantry with a handful of Honey Nut Cheerios, earnestly munching away in a cycle of gluttonous indulgence.
All in all, my lust for cereal isn’t the most destructive vice I could have acquired, especially after the ones that I had previously clung to which has attempted to render me a malicious wretch who wandered aimlessly in a zombified stupor. The worst cereal can do to me is turn my midriff into a ring of cottage cheese, but I figure my relatively youthful metabolism should be able to keep any unsightly physical changes at bay. Plus, who the hell ever heard of someone joining Weight Watchers on account of Fruit Pebbles? So I continue on, trying to fill the void where my soul had been with an onslaught of gluten, praying that they have Honey Comb in Hell.
