
 '##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!!
  ##:::: ##::'##.. ##:: ##.....:: ===========================================
  ##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #325 !!
  #########: ##:::: ##: ######::: ZIEGO VUANTAR SHALL BE MUCH VICTORIOUS!  !!
  ##.... ##: ##:::: ##: ##...:::: ===========================================
  ##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: "Jesus In Your Cereal"                   !!
  ##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: by -> Ashtray Heart                      !!
 ..:::::..::::.....::::........:: 12/9/98                                  !!
 !!========================================================================!!

        My Alpha-Bits cereal spelled out "Jesus" once.  So after that I
 switched cereals to Cheerios.  But the really spooky thing about that is
 that then my CHEERIOS started spelling out Jesus.  And making little
 crosses and stuff.  It just got worse and worse and worse.  I mean, I'd
 get "JOHN 3:16" in my cereal, so I would start ripping apart my cereal
 bowls, and then my cereal boxes, to see if there were little tiny
 Jesuses hiding in my cereal, like there are little tiny naked robot
 Abraham Lincolns hiding out in the woods and pretending to be fairies.
 But no luck.  I couldn't find a Jesus anywhere hiding there.  Then I
 figured it was just a Christian plot, the way the Christians put up
 billboards all over the place trying to convert me, trying to induct me
 into the militia of self-confessed failures.  But that's one thing,
 that's one promise I made my daddy when I was young, I said "Dad, I
 won't disappoint you.  I won't turn into one of those Christians, no
 matter how bad things get."  But it didn't let up, you know.  It started
 saying "REPENT OR DIE!"  And I would start talking back to the cereal, I
 would say "Don't you see?  Christianity DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!  It's ABSURD
 AND SELF-DEFEATING?"  Well, so, I guess, is evangelical messages in your
 cereal.
 
        And yes, I did try switching brands.  Store brand, Post,
 Kellogg's, Mueslix, Kaboom!, Uncle Sam -- they ALL did it.  Even QUISP,
 for Christ's sake!  I tried different bowls, too -- I one day replaced
 all my bowls and silverware, which I couldn't really afford, but I did
 it anyway.  Any way to get that fucking Jesus Freak cereal to shut the
 hell up.  To no avail.

        I started interrogating my neighbors who were Christians, to see
 if they had done anything to my cereal.  Most of them weren't, except
 for the sanctimonious old bat who lived on the floor below me.  She was
 always making tut-tut sounds about my dress habits and complaining to
 the super about the volume at which I played my stereo.  I have no idea
 how she even knew; she was half-deaf anyway.  Anyway, I asked her about
 cereal and she came right back at me telling me that cold cereal was a
 tool of the devil, that it was an occult plot and that no matter what
 that Mr. Kellogg had said about it helping you to lead a Christian
 lifestyle, she knew different.  She had seen what the youth of today
 were up to, and she could tell you, sonny, it was for one reason --
 well, two reasons:  Flouride in the water, and cold breakfast cereal.
 When SHE was growing up she'd eaten cream of wheat, and still did to
 this very day, and she'd lived to be eighty-seven years old and had been
 a healthy and moral Christian woman all that time.  I thought about
 telling her about my fundamentalist cereal, that it had been giving me
 the same kind of bullshit she gave me on a regular basis, but I figured
 there was no way she could possibly know anyway, and besides which she
 carried enough weight with the super that she might possibly get me
 kicked out, though it wasn't very likely.

        Anyway, then I wondered if the cereal was turning into the
 Eucharist, through transubstantiation, or something, and if I was
 putting myself in a state of mortal sin just by eating Raisin Bran.  I
 wondered if I should venerate the cheerios in a big ol' monstrance with
 fake beams of light coming out of it on all sides.  I wondered if there
 was an All-Bran Jesus growing inside my belly just for eating breakfast.
 Or worse, if it was turning me into a Christian just by my eating it.  I
 had seen enough previously rational and sane friends give up all sense
 of pride and self-worth in the name of some kind of bogus savior to know
 that I wasn't immune to that sort of thing.  And I WAS reading the Bible
 more often, but not because I believed in Jesus, or anything; I was just
 trying to find ways to get back at the cereal.  Theological arguments.
 I'd point out all the contradictions and flaws in the Bible to it, but
 all it would say is "Even the Devil can quote scripture."  It didn't
 answer when I asked it if that meant that IT was the devil.  That damn
 cereal was driving me out of my fucking mind.  But I didn't want to give
 up eating cereal.  I really love cereal.

        Eventually I tried to kill it.  I tried to kill my cereal.  I
 would dump dead cockroaches I found around my apartment into it.  I'd
 drop rat poison into it.  It would just come back and say "Jesus
 forgives you" and "You're only hurting yourself."  Nothing I did to it
 seemed to work.  One day I got so distraught I blew a hole right through
 the goddamned cereal bowl with a shotgun.  The blast went straight into
 the apartment of the neighbor that lived below me.  I had to pay two
 weeks' salary to get the place fixed, but at least that bitch moved out
 the next week.  It didn't stop anything, but I kind of figured that she
 hadn't really had anything to do with it in the first place, so it
 didn't bother me.

        So what I eventually tried was, because talking to the cereal
 didn't work, I bought a box of cereal and started putting pamphlets for
 other religions, like the Church of the Subgenius, in my cereal.  They'd
 get all soggy, but I didn't care.  I wasn't eating the cereal anyway.  I
 had switched to Pop-Tarts for the duration.  I would watch the cereal
 every morning and every morning it got a little more agitated.  It would
 call me a blasphemer, a scoffer, and a mocker.  It would tell me I was
 going straight to hell.  It would curse me in the name of Jesus.
 Instead of going "snap, crackle, pop", my rice crispies would scream and
 bark out obscenities.  The milk would turn brown even when it WASN'T one
 of those yummy chocolatey cereals.  It would start boiling over and
 spilling out of the bowl.  I soon learned to put it on a protective
 plastic plate, because otherwise the spilled milk would eat right
 through the table.  It was really getting to test my endurance.  One day
 it started spitting  bits of cereal right at my face.  It burned like
 boiling fat.  I had to go to the doctor for that one.  I kept with it,
 though, because I knew that I was getting to it and it couldn't last
 forever.

        After about two months of pamphlets, I woke up one morning with
 an uncanny sense of peace.  I went to fix the traditional bowl of
 cereal -- Alpha-Bits this morning -- and found everything stilled.  No
 curses, strange chemical reactions, or upheaval.  I looked into the bowl
 and found that this  morning it had spelled out, simply, "PRAISE 'BOB'."
 I smiled.  Since that day, I've eaten cereal every morning and have even
 come to look forward to the way it uplifts and inspires me.  I've even
 gotten my cereal its own Church ordainment card -- when the flying
 saucers come to take me off to space, I want my cereal to come with me.

 !!========================================================================!!
 !! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! #325, WRITTEN BY: ASHTRAY HEART, 12/9/98 !!
