If, as they say, "you are what you eat," then your go-to breakfast cereal might reveal your personality.
I, for example, enjoy Life cereal.
Life cereal is square and bland, like me. It doesn't try too hard. It nods at being healthful, but it doesn't go overboard. Again, like me.
If you are a child of the 1970s, you might remember the famous Life commercial with the little kid named Mikey, whose older brothers dare him to taste Life. "I'm not going to try it; you try it," the brothers banter.
Well, Mikey, the 3-year-old Life pitchman, downed a spoonful of the cereal and appeared to like it. Or at least he didn't spit it out.
Mikey later became the topic of an urban myth. Kids said he died after he ate Pop Rocks and drank soda until his stomach exploded. According to Google, this is a pants-on-fire lie. The actor who played Mikey grew up to work for the New York Knicks.
Our 13-year-old son likes Lucky Charms. (Hold your sugar shaming, please. My wife and I have suspended parental "best practices" during COVID-19.)
I think our son legitimately finds them tasty, but there's also an element of forbidden fruit. Nothing so sugary should be allowed in a child's bowl, right?
Lucky Charms bring to mind leprechauns and marshmallows. Adding pastel colored marshmallows to grain-based cereals is the secret of Lucky Charms. As the leprechauns on the commercials said, "They're magically delicious!"
Every time I serve our son his morning cereal bowl, I bow at the waist and say in a formal tone, "Here you are, Master Kennedy, your bowl of Lucky Charms. Enjoy. They're magically delicious, you know."
Immediately, he cuts his eyes at me as if to say, "Go away, weirdo!"
Our older son likes something called Coco Roos, which are like Coco Puffs but come in big, dog-food-size bags you can buy at Walmart. The small brown spheres even look, and crunch, like dog food.
Our 18-year-old is about to go off to college, so at least I know he could survive a potential COVID-19 quarantine on $5 worth of chocolate pellets. He's cuckoo for Coco Roos. They fit his personality, too; they are unpretentious, economical and perfect for those times when an 18-year-0ld's stomach feels like a bottomless pit.
My wife, meanwhile, is a big fan of Fiber One Honey Clusters. My beef is that they are shown on the box in a bowl mixed with raspberries, which I feel is an artistic thing, not a culinary thing. The little red berries look good against the golden brown honey clusters, but I feel raspberries are too bitter for cereal.
I'm not sure why this bothers me, but it's part of a pattern. I'm also extremely bothered by how every renovated house on HGTV has a bowl of green apples in the kitchen. Start looking for them, and you'll see what I mean. It drives me nuts for no good reason.
Meanwhile, our dog Boise, a 15-pound mixed breed, likes all brands of cereal. Drop a Coco Roo or a Honey Cluster and he will catch it in his mouth before it hits the floor.
This comes under the heading of "beggars can't be choosers," which, all things considered, is not a bad motto for dogs.
Email Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.
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Mark Kennedy / Staff file photo