Monday, February 28, 2005
Activity catalog; Last week I…:
-Got 20/20 on my Adaptive processing midterm (along with most of the class).
-Got take home midterm 2 for Adaptive processing (yup, same class).
-Upcoming midterm in Mathematical Pattern Recognition
-Did a lot of homework
-Felt pretty down about stuff.
Um…yeah, that’s it. So in lieu of complaining, story time!
* * * *
When I was young, breakfast was regulated. We didn’t have a lot of exotic cereals around the Preecs household growing up. There was a lot of Kix, a lot of Chex, a lot of Cheereos, normal stuff like that. Boring stuff. *Adult* cereals.
Saturday, though, that was the day.
Saturday, we were allowed to put sugar on our cereal. Yeah, that’s right. Unregulated, too. I would come down in the morning and click on the toons and set myself up with a bowl of Kix and the sugar bowl. And then it was on.
The problem with Kix, though, as a sugar-mouth delivery system, is that they represent an inherently unstable system. You have a spherical, floating object, top-heavy with sugar. Imagine trying to balance yourself on a beach ball in the ocean. What happens? The beach ball rolls over and you fall into the ocean. Same with Kix and sugar. I’d get spinning cereal and I’d loose sugar to the milk. I know it was still in there, but it wasn’t on the cereal, so it didn’t count. Solution, more sugar. Then more spinning, than more sugar.
My parents really should have been paying better attention to me, because I hit that Saturday-morning sugar cereal binge *hard*. Toward the end of that bowl, I would be eating Kix in caramel. I’d get spoonfuls that didn’t even have any cereal in them, just sugar and milk. Did I eat it? Of course I did! Did I then drink the bowl clean of the sweetest milk known to man? Of course I did. Did I then manage to scrape the rest of the not-quite-dissolved sugar off the bottom of the bowl and eat that? A resounding ‘yes’!
That went on for years. My parents never relented on this with any sort of regularity. We always had normal cereal, from when I was a kid to when I finished high school. We never ate stuff with marshmallows or crunchberries or sugar-encrusted coating. It just wasn’t done. That always grated on me too. That stuff was tasty! Why didn’t we eat it?
Of course, eventually, I grew up, went to college, and left my obsession with sugar cereal behind.
…
Oh, wait, I’m sorry, that’s the exact opposite of what actually happened.
When I went off to college, it was open game on sugar cereal. I was a gerbil in a pellet-shop. You couldn’t have kept me away from that stuff with a swat team. The cafeteria at college my freshman year always had sugar cereal of some sort. Always. Some of it was the soft-core ‘Honey-Nut Cheereos’ or ‘Frosted Flakes’, but they got us the hard stuff too. Lucky Charms, Pops, and the black tar heroin of the sugar cereal world, Smacks. Smacks had so much sugar on them that if you squashed them together hard enough, they formed their own impromptu rice crispy treats.
And I hit the stuff hard. Real hard. Every time I ate at the cafeteria, I’d include a bowl of sugar cereal. Every time. Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, didn’t matter. There would be some high-fructose corn syrup in there somewhere, by gum. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t make up for an entire childhood devoid of Fruit loops for breakfast. Take that, parents! Your plans at marshmallow-for-breakfast prohibition have failed! Behold as I go back for a second bowl! Mua ha ha ha haaaa!
Eventually, I think I caught up with my sugar norm, though. I was only on campus for a year, and after that I had to buy my own sugary drugs. Over time, the desire teetered away. Never ebbing completely, but certainly returning to more normal levels. I’m an adult now, I don’t need sugar and frosting all over everything I eat.
Well not usually. I just bought a box of *chocolate* lucky charms. I ate my first bowl for dinner. In your face, parents!
-N
-Got 20/20 on my Adaptive processing midterm (along with most of the class).
-Got take home midterm 2 for Adaptive processing (yup, same class).
-Upcoming midterm in Mathematical Pattern Recognition
-Did a lot of homework
-Felt pretty down about stuff.
Um…yeah, that’s it. So in lieu of complaining, story time!
* * * *
When I was young, breakfast was regulated. We didn’t have a lot of exotic cereals around the Preecs household growing up. There was a lot of Kix, a lot of Chex, a lot of Cheereos, normal stuff like that. Boring stuff. *Adult* cereals.
Saturday, though, that was the day.
Saturday, we were allowed to put sugar on our cereal. Yeah, that’s right. Unregulated, too. I would come down in the morning and click on the toons and set myself up with a bowl of Kix and the sugar bowl. And then it was on.
The problem with Kix, though, as a sugar-mouth delivery system, is that they represent an inherently unstable system. You have a spherical, floating object, top-heavy with sugar. Imagine trying to balance yourself on a beach ball in the ocean. What happens? The beach ball rolls over and you fall into the ocean. Same with Kix and sugar. I’d get spinning cereal and I’d loose sugar to the milk. I know it was still in there, but it wasn’t on the cereal, so it didn’t count. Solution, more sugar. Then more spinning, than more sugar.
My parents really should have been paying better attention to me, because I hit that Saturday-morning sugar cereal binge *hard*. Toward the end of that bowl, I would be eating Kix in caramel. I’d get spoonfuls that didn’t even have any cereal in them, just sugar and milk. Did I eat it? Of course I did! Did I then drink the bowl clean of the sweetest milk known to man? Of course I did. Did I then manage to scrape the rest of the not-quite-dissolved sugar off the bottom of the bowl and eat that? A resounding ‘yes’!
That went on for years. My parents never relented on this with any sort of regularity. We always had normal cereal, from when I was a kid to when I finished high school. We never ate stuff with marshmallows or crunchberries or sugar-encrusted coating. It just wasn’t done. That always grated on me too. That stuff was tasty! Why didn’t we eat it?
Of course, eventually, I grew up, went to college, and left my obsession with sugar cereal behind.
…
Oh, wait, I’m sorry, that’s the exact opposite of what actually happened.
When I went off to college, it was open game on sugar cereal. I was a gerbil in a pellet-shop. You couldn’t have kept me away from that stuff with a swat team. The cafeteria at college my freshman year always had sugar cereal of some sort. Always. Some of it was the soft-core ‘Honey-Nut Cheereos’ or ‘Frosted Flakes’, but they got us the hard stuff too. Lucky Charms, Pops, and the black tar heroin of the sugar cereal world, Smacks. Smacks had so much sugar on them that if you squashed them together hard enough, they formed their own impromptu rice crispy treats.
And I hit the stuff hard. Real hard. Every time I ate at the cafeteria, I’d include a bowl of sugar cereal. Every time. Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, didn’t matter. There would be some high-fructose corn syrup in there somewhere, by gum. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t make up for an entire childhood devoid of Fruit loops for breakfast. Take that, parents! Your plans at marshmallow-for-breakfast prohibition have failed! Behold as I go back for a second bowl! Mua ha ha ha haaaa!
Eventually, I think I caught up with my sugar norm, though. I was only on campus for a year, and after that I had to buy my own sugary drugs. Over time, the desire teetered away. Never ebbing completely, but certainly returning to more normal levels. I’m an adult now, I don’t need sugar and frosting all over everything I eat.
Well not usually. I just bought a box of *chocolate* lucky charms. I ate my first bowl for dinner. In your face, parents!
-N
Comments:
Thank you for that awesome break in bleary-eyed studying. I bought a box of Corn Pops this weekend for the exact same reason. Because I never owned my own box of Pops before.
btw- is Chocolate Lucky Charms any good?
S
btw- is Chocolate Lucky Charms any good?
S
# posted by 
: February 28, 2005 at 10:11 PM
: February 28, 2005 at 10:11 PM
In defense of our parenting skills, I must say that we were somewhat "aware" of the Saturday AM sugar scoflaw behavior. Think of it as the original "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The discovery of sugar on the cereal and independant breakfast production it engendered represented the first return of Saturday sleep-in for parents after 5 years of child raising. When it came to sleeping in, we just looked to the other side of the pillow. I am intrigued that you are growing out of the sucrose obcession. I've always struggled with my childhood Twinkie deprivation. Love, Dad
# posted by : February 28, 2005 at 10:56 PM
: February 28, 2005 at 10:56 PM
You know, dad, I say go for it. Just pig out on the bloody things. You will be happy as a clam for a few months, and then your desire will slowly teeter off. As long as the sugar spike doesn't give you diabedes, I see no problem with the methodology.
I'll give a full review of Chocolate Lucky Charms once I get more experience with the taste. I'm rationing it out, because I *also* like regular cereal with *bananas*. It's a toss-up, really.
-N
I'll give a full review of Chocolate Lucky Charms once I get more experience with the taste. I'm rationing it out, because I *also* like regular cereal with *bananas*. It's a toss-up, really.
-N
Some advice: No matter how good it sounds, never, and I mean never, have a big bowl of lucky charms with nestle's strawberry quik instead of regular milk.
I think my heart still has irregular heartbeats cuz of that...
--Dave
Post a Comment
I think my heart still has irregular heartbeats cuz of that...
--Dave
# posted by : March 2, 2005 at 2:49 PM
: March 2, 2005 at 2:49 PM