I totally don’t want to go off on one of those “in my day
things were different” rants, because of course, everybody thinks that, and frankly, I feel the EXACT same as I always have, like in my mind I’m still in high school, only I have a job and more stuff. So really, the only way I even know I’m getting older is because time is passing and my friends’ kids are turning into actual, coherent human beings who can take phone messages and have conversations about global warming. So, I don’t usually indulge in that kind of "in my day Saturday Night Live was better, and people didn’t talk so loud on their cellphones, and music had meaning," rhetoric, because really, where’s that going to get us?
But, ok….I noticed something the other day, and I just can’t keep quiet about it. I guess I started thinking about this after reading this hilarious post about how the game Candyland has changed since we were young. I was in the grocery store over the
weekend—have you noticed that the packaging for breakfast cereal has gotten
really scary since we were kids? I’m not just
talking about “oh, that Captain Crunch has gotten a little more sinister
looking.”
Is it just me, or does this squirrel look not only like he’s
eaten far too much of the sugary breakfast cereal he’s advertising, but also
like he’s tweaking on meth?
And, what about Lucky the Leprachaun? For the record, I was one of those kids whose
mom wouldn’t let them eat sugary cereal, so I never even had Lucky Charms until
college. But, when I did have them, I’m
99% sure that Lucky did not look like this:
Jesus Christ! What
happened to Lucky? Did he always look
like a 3-D rave partyboy dancing in a club?
I don’t think so. And, what are all those new charms? Has the cynicism of this modern age even managed to permeate our breakfast cereal?
To answer your next question, no—I was not high when I
started wondering these things. I
haven’t been high since the nineties, dude. Can you imagine how weird my mind would be if I did? Maybe I was off on a nostalgia tangent because we were in my hometown over the weekend, and maybe while I was there I started thinking about how very long it’s been since Lucky Charms even occurred to me. Maybe this is due to the fact that on Saturday, we were eating in a pizza place, and randomly started talking to this kid who worked there, and during the conversation Stephan said "oh, my wife’s from here," and maybe then the kid said "What year’d you graduate?" And maybe I said "Oh, a long time ago….we probably don’t know any of the same people."
And maybe then Pizza Kid said "Oh, come on– what year? I KNOW ALOT OF OLDER PEOPLE."