Do the monster mash

I have conquered many addictions in my life, but there is one habit I have yet to kick. It has such a powerful grip on me. I don't know of anything else that can make me high and turn my milk purple or pink.

That's right. My name is Rocky and I'm a monster cereal-aholic.

Especially when it comes to Boo Berry and Franken Berry. The two cereals are only made seasonally and released around Halloween time each year. So every October, I stagger around the city of St. Paul like a zombie in search of a sugar-high.

The Minnesota-based General Mills company used to produce those two cereals year-round along with Count Chokula and, for a short time, Yummy Mummy. I thought while growing up my business alone would be enough to keep Boo and Frank on the shelves, but Boo Berry disappeared like a ghost through a wall in the 1980s. Franken Berry may have been chased out of town by a torch-toting mob in the 1990s for all I know.

It took me a hell of a lot longer than 28 days to recover. I was still reeling after 28 months. No cereal on the market could really replace them (there aren't any other straight-up strawberry or blueberry cereals with marshmallows). Nothing, not even Lucky Charms comes close.

Then, out of the blue about four years ago, my wife and I were walking through Target the day before Halloween and boom, they were back. Boo Berry and Franken Berry. But only for a limited time.

I only bought two boxes and regretted it starting about November 6 when my supply ran out. Every year since, I've stockpiled more and more monster cereal.

This year, the stuff was hard to find. We went to three different Targets and four different grocery stores - about 40 miles of driving - with no luck. I started to panic. What if they discontinued it again?! I was so desperate to score one last stash.

When I spotted a pallet display at a local Cub grocery store, I almost howled like a werewolf. I grabbed as many boxes as I could carry and went to the register. The cute hyper Valley Girl-esque cashier was shocked at my breakfast bonanza.

"OhmahGod! Ten boxes of cereal?!!" the cashier gasped.

"Yup," I said.

"Is it, like, on sale or something?" she asked, her head starting to nod in rythmic fashion as if she were a bobblehead doll in the back window of a car.

"No, it's not on sale, it's seasonal," I said.

"OK, but 10 boxes is, like, a lot of cereal," she said.

"Yeah, but this stuff is hard to get a hold of," I said, shaking like a crackhead trying to seal a deal in a back alley. "After Halloween, I'm cut off again for another year."

"Wow, you must, like, eat a lot of cereal at breakfast, huh?" she asked. "It would take me, like, forever to totally chow down 10 boxes of cereal."

"Well this should last me at least a month," I joked. "Maybe two if I set a three-bowl limit every day."

"OhmahGod! Are you, like, serious?!" she gasped. "There is seriously, like, no way I could eat, like, the same cereal every day for, like, a month! And I could never, like, eat three bowls at once or I'd, like, totally hurl."

"Not me, I'm a Boo Berry junkie," I said. "I tell my wife to keep her hands away from my dish in the morning and everything will be fine."

"What-ever!" she giggled as she finished ringing up my perfect 10 purchase. "That will be, like, $19.90."

"You spent $20 on cereal, honey?" a large African American woman interrupted. "That's crazy!"

"Yeah, it is, but I'm nuts for the stuff," I said. "Some people buy cigarettes, some people buy booze. I buy Boo Berry and Franken Berry. They are two of my biggest vices."

"What do you mean some people?" the woman asked, raising her voice.

"I mean people who are hooked on booze and cigarettes buy booze and cigarettes," I said. "I buy sugar-coated cereals. It was supposed to be a joke."

"Are you sure that's what you meant, Mr. Big Cracker Man?" she snapped. "When white people say some people they usually mean black people."

"Ah, no, whoa, that's not even close to what I meant," I said. "And I certainly didn't come to the grocery store to pick on some woman I never met with passive-aggressive racism in the express lane. I'm just a Franken Freak, a Boo Boy, and that's it, git it?"

"Should I, like, get a manager or something?" the cashier asked.

"No, it's OK, don't bother, we'll be fine," I said. "I just wanted to buy my Boo Berry and Franken Berry. There is no black or white tonight or any night with me. The only colors I give a fuck about tonight are purple and pink."

"OK, baby, you don't have to get all mad," the lady said. "I believe you. We're cool now."

Thank God. I was hoping things wouldn't escalate to the point where I would have to explain why Count Chokula - the brown, chocolate cereal - was the only kind of monster cereal I was missing. If I was labeled a cereal racist, it really might have been enough to make me quit monster cereals cold turkey.