Here comes the spiderberries

It's midnight again in Tennessee, and you know what that means -- midnight snack. Tonight, I'm having a bowl of the Amazing Spider-Man's cereal.

When I asked my mother to buy me this in the grocery store earlier this afternoon, she wanted to be sure I actually meant to eat it and "not just look at the box." Prepare to laugh, the taste of this cereal was actually recommended to me by a trusted source. The sad truth is that I read a blog, written by and for grown men, that reviews and recommends, among other things, children's breakfast cereal. Well, I assume it's for children, but I'm sure there are plenty of other young adults buying and eating this cereal out there, many of them without guilt or self-consciousness, I'd bet. 

You may notice Spider-Man's cereal promises to be a good source of fiber and whole grain (being a great source of power and responsibility, that goes without saying). You might think that's proof that the breakfast cereal market has grown up and the industry knows it, pitching the promise of healthy eating along with a maze on the back of the box. But I figure that's really more about reassuring the parents who will cave to their child's desire for Spider-Man cereal that this isn't the worst food they can buy for their kid.

This is the first time in a long time (or six weeks, whichever you prefer) I have eaten this kind of cereal, the kind that's artificially colored, unnaturally shaped, and accented by marshmallows instead of fruit and nuts. I don't know if it's Spider-Man's cereal tasting subpar or my tongue's sensitivity to sweetness fading, or both, but I've never better understood the cliche that breakfast cereal tastes like cardboard. You can't go home again. The silver lining is that one of my bad, old habits is being eroded by a good, new habit, so I have more time on this earth to question the value of living.