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Ärende: FidoNews 21:40 [02/08]: Andy'S Anecdotes
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                        ANDY'S ANECDOTES
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        Mikey's Rehab Believed to be Complete Success
                  By Andy Alt, 1:14/250

Originally Scripted 11/03/2003
Slightly Modified 09/27/2004


   After years of struggling with addiction and rampant criminal
activity, officials have declared that Mikey is completely
rehabilitated. I managed to contact Mikey through his parents and he
granted me an exclusive interview. The majority of what he said will
be misquoted and printed out of context. Here's what he had to say:

   "Yeah... I had some problems," he began. I noticed that Mikey
would only speak in between mouthfuls while eating his beloved Life
cereal.

   "When they first gave me a bowl of Life, I thought it was the best
thing since... well... since breast milk, because I hated everything.
They didn't think I'd really eat it because of my intense hatred of
anything I'd ever eaten before. I only did it because I had a side bet
going with the kid next to him. It was kind of like a pre-adolescent
conspiracy."

   The expression on Mikey's face became much more sad, and we could
tell that painful memories were beginning to surface. Mikey maintained
his resilience through great strain, and continued his tale.

   "I... my only real crime is that I love too much. My parents were
real happy at first. I'd never seen them smiling so much when they
walked into the room."

   There was a pause, and I turned to Mikey's parents and asked them
what particularly pleased them. After 23 years of silence about the
issue, his mother finally spoke candidly on the subject.

   "His father and I were extremley worried about him. He hadn't eaten
solid food for years. The only thing keeping him alive were daily
intravenous feedings at the hospital. We were getting ready to leave
for another routine trip to the hospital and told him to wait in the
kitchen with his friend and our other son. We had no idea..." Mikey's
mother had to stop momentarily to reach for a tissue. "The doctors
knew that the intravenous feedings couldn't keep him alive forever,
but they instilled so much hope in us." She started smiling again as
the room brightened with her memory that day. "We came downstairs and
we were absolutely astonished! He was eating! It was absolutely
beautiful."

   Mikey's father interjected his thoughts at this point.

   "I thought the most beautiful thing I'd ever see was my children
being born, but to see Mikey eating solid food surpassed my wildest
fantasies. We decided to have a celebration and invited all of our
friends and family. He wouldn't eat the cake though. He just sat there
the whole time eating Life."

   "So where did events take a turn for the worst?" I quietly asked.
Mikey's father continued the discussion.

   "Well... after a week of eating nothing but Life cereal, we
bought some Golden Grahams which he tasted but promptly refused to
finish. My wife and I were disappointed but we considered it a minor
setback and were grateful that at least he still enjoyed eating Life
cereal and didn't hate it, like everything else. We bought - and he
rejected - 68 other major cereal brands. We were starting to become
more disgruntled, but since we had saved so much money after the
intravenous feedings ended, we didn't really care about the money. We
then gave him 13 more flavors of cereal to try; this time they were
generic in yellow and black bags. Some of these were labelled
'cinnamon cereal,' 'sugared cereal,' 'brown cereal,' 'crunchy cereal,'
and just plain old, 'cereal.' That last one clearly stated to 'Add
Milk. Refer to a Life cereal box for instructions.' We were positive
that Mikey would latch on to 'cereal' as he had latched on to the
Life, but no joy. My wife and I decided it was a phase and he'd grow
out of it. We made the decision to give it time. That was our biggest
mistake."

   Mikey's mother took over the interview at this point: "Weeks went
by, and turned into months. We were spending a fortune on dish-washing
liquid, hot water, milk, and toilet paper. I couldn't even go to work
anymore because all my extra time was spent doing dishes and going to
the grocery store."

   "One day when Mikey came home from school, I watched in utter
fascination as he ate an entire box of Golden Grahams, then sat down
in front of the television. That was pretty unusual for him. Usually
when he got home, he'd only eat half a box of Life, then sat in the
kitchen watching the box of Life on the table. He's very worried that
someone could break in and steal his Life. We told him not to worry
and he should go organize his baseball card collection. Before Life
came along, he was so proud of his Babe Ruth card that he had it
framed in solid gold, and kept it hidden inside a jewel-encrusted
model of Yankee Stadium, which was originally created by the stadium
designers when they made their proposal to build the actual Yankee
Stadium. Of course Mikey had the jewels added later."

   "Mikey had just come back from the kitchen and was ready to talk
again. He set his bowl of Life down on the Life table, which was
formerly called the coffee table until 4 years ago. He spent 53 months
fighting the legal system, and after numerous court battles and
appeals, they had granted Mikey's Life table a legal change of name.
The only condition was that it would only affect his coffee table, and
not any other coffee tables in the nation. Mikey spoke up about the
dramatic change in his perplexing eating habits:

   "I was at school eating Life during studyhall. The teachers and
principal never did like me. To this day, I still think they were
carrot sympathizers or had a deal with competing cereal brands. They
sent me to detention where I met a guy... Guy asked me if I wanted to
buy some grass. I told him that I wasn't interested. I told him that I
hated everything. Guy kept pressuring me. I told him that I wouldn't
eat anything but Life cereal. Guy told me that you don't eat grass...
he said that you smoke it. I looked at him, not really trusting him
all that much; I told him that I'd try anything once, but I'd probably
hate it."

   "After I smoked it, a whole new world opened up for me. I felt
like Aladdin must have felt on his magic carpet. I couldn't believe
anything could be better than Life cereal. But in reality, all I had
on my hands was another addiction. When I was in prison, I realized
that Life cereal was a gateway cereal. It only leads to the hard
stuff, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Chocolate Rice Krispies. It
wasn't really about smoking the pot to get high, it was about smoking
the pot to intensify the taste of Life cereal" Mikey then told us the
events leading to his capture, arrest, and imprisonment.

   "It didn't take very long before my parents figured out that I was
smoking weed. I was eating cereal brands they had never even heard of
before, and some weren't even produced by American cereal companies. I
was a senior in high school by this time. I was pretty rebellious,
even for a teenager. I wouldn't even do the dishes when my parents
asked. I know that kids who eat Trix are 9 times more likely to wash
dishes when asked, but sometimes kids just don't care about stuff like
facts."

   "I mean... I would wash a bowl and a spoon, but only when I needed
some cereal and mom was out grocery shopping. About 3 years, 8 months,
5 days, 29 minutes, and 9 seconds after my Life addiction started, I
made an important discovery: In a pinch, Life could be eaten with a
fork. Sometimes I'd just have to wash a bowl. If I was opening a new
box of Life, I'd pull out the bag and check for holes. If I found zero
defects, I would just put the bag back in the box and pour the milk
in. This saved a lot of time and it freed mom up so she had energy to
go grocery shopping. The phone bill got really high after I found the
number on the box for calling in questions and comments. Actually the
bill wasn't expensive at first. But the geniuses who created Life had
to temporarily ditch their toll-free number after I began calling
them."

   "I took notes every time I called with questions, and eventually
was able to replicate Life to the exact molecule. Or so I thought. I
was pretty cocky for a kid. I thought I could take on the whole Life
corporation, and I was only 17. I thought that my chemistry set was
really paying off. I was pretty devastated when I first tasted it. My
synthesized Life was revolting. I hated it."

   "Using the money I had earned from selling all my gold... Oh, I
forget to tell ya, I had accidentally figured out how to turn lead
into gold. It's actually not that hard if you have the right
combination of milk in your conversion equations. So using all that
money, I hired a team of molecular engineers to examine my work. They
found that my Life had the exact same chemical and molecular
composition, but each atomic particle had one less electron than the
kind you buy at the store. The engineers were a little surprised that
a missing electron would be cause enough for me to vomit when I ate
it. They each tried it and found no difference in taste. I tried to
explain to them that I hated everything, but they didn't seem to
comprehend how that was possible."

   "I'd like to sidetrack a little here and publicly apologize for
what happened to that team of engineers. I later found out that after
eating the Life I had created with my chemistry set, they were unable
to eat anything else after that. They couldn't even eat the real Life
cereal. It's unfortunate that my design notes became ruined when they
dropped into a bowl of milk I left by my bed. My results couldn't be
duplicated and they eventually starved to death. I was surprised that
the same intravenous feedings that helped me as a child couldn't help
them and I deeply regret causing any inconvenience to their family."

   "Wow, I feel a lot better," as he spoons some more Life onto his
eagerly awaiting tongue. "It's nice to apologize after carrying that
burden of guilt for so long. I feel like I just unloaded a truck full
of Life cereal from my shoulders," he declares with a sigh. "Anyway, I
was pretty ticked off to find out my attempt to duplicate Life had
failed. I guess I lost my temper a little. I threw a box of Lucky
Charms at my chemistry set and stormed out of the house after grabbing
all the boxes of Life cereal from the kitchen cabinets. It took 6
trips and I had to rent a U-Haul, but it was a damn good thing I
managed to salvage them all. I was about 5 blocks away when I heard an
explosion and saw a blinding flash of light in my rearview mirror. I
didn't notice it right away because I was so focused on the fuzzy Life
boxes hanging from the mirror, but after 30 seconds it finally dawned
on me what had just happened. I don't buy chemistry sets anymore,
they're just too dangerous. Plus I just keep asking myself, 'what good
is science if I can't make my own Life cereal.' I also avoid Lucky
Charms like the plague; I hate them anyway."

   I holed up in an abandoned Life cereal warehouse for a few days.
Finally I got the courage up to venture out because I needed to go to
the post office. I did a lot of mass-mailings back then. They're all
just coupons for Life cereal. Since the limit is only one or two boxes
per customer, I set up a system and made some important nation-wide
contacts. I never understood why the limits were imposed - I thought
it was a really bonehead move to put a limit on Life cereal - but I
have complete trust in the masterminds at the Life corporation."

   "The people who received my coupons bought Life cereal for me and
shipped it free of charge. In return for that, I sent them my really
easy method of turning lead into gold. I didn't really feel as if I
was taking advantage of them. Even though they were doing me a big
favor and weren't getting any Life cereal in return, they knew what
they were getting into when they signed up. Besides... anyone who
willingly gives up their Life cereal to ship it to a stranger should
be on some kinda medication for mental disorders. One time I saw a
shrink for a disorder that was unrelated to giving up Life cereal. He
tried giving me Prozac, but I hated it."

   "I arrived at the post office and saw my picture on the wall! I
couldn't believe it, but I was on the Ten Most Wanted list! Apparently
not only had my chemistry set caused an explosion, but it took out an
entire city block! And then I read more of the short article next to
my face, and it said there was some kind of unique interaction during
the chemical fallout, and almost everyone in the city died from food
poisoning during breakfast the morning after I had my run-in with that
box of Lucky Charms.. The only lives spared were people who ate Life
cereal for breakfast that day. The authorities thought it was a
pre-meditated Life attack. In the photograph, I noticed that next to
my left cheek, a box of Life had been superimposed on the photograph
of my face. The caption read, 'Have you seen this man?' I really
started panicking because as I was reading the article, I had been
holding a box of Life cereal, and had been rubbing it lovingly across
my right cheek."

   "I was so freaked out that I dropped my box of Life and ran out
the door. Right after the fresh air hit me, I realized my mistake
almost immediately and ran back in to get the box so I could escape
and not worry so much about losing my Life. After that, everything
gets really blurry when I try to remember. I pretty much had to live
on the street, sleeping in a carboard box, which was basically a bunch
of Life cereal boxes glued together. I never threw away the boxes of
Life that I ate. I didn't have to worry about shelter and I had a new
house every week. Every time the law caught up with me, I would duck
into the nearest grocery store and head to the Life cereal aisle. The
cops never thought to look for me there; I guess they didn't expect me
to make such an obvious mistake."

   "I got my basic needs met by lying, cheating, and stealing. I
pretty much gave up weed at that point. I didn't have enough
connections to get both Life and weed. I chose Life cereal. One time
a religious organization offered me food and and a place to stay. The
only condition was that I couldn't eat meat or other animal flesh
while I stayed there. I agreed to that, and told them that I hated
animal flesh and meat anyway. My time with those religious folks was
pretty short-term. I was thrown out after a week because they felt my
Life cereal habit violated five of the 'Seven Deadly Sins.'"

   "That's really about all I remember from my time on the street.
The Law caught up to me finally when they were looking for the Trix
Rabbit (who was not only in disguise, but under an assumed name), and
I was arrested and given no Life. They declared me not guilty by
reason of insanity, but sentenced me to community service where I had

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