Selling Honeycomb To Five-Year-Olds
First, the seriousness. Preditors & Editors has been sued by two people they exposed as shady operators. P & E is an invaluable reference for writers seeking representation, and it would be a terrible thing if the people they warn new writers against succeed in shutting them down. They’re accepting PayPal donations for legal bills on this page. It’s a good cause, I think.
Now for the seriously amusing. I just received, this morning, proof positive that all the money spent on advertising is not spent in vain. To explain this, I must explain the Little Prince’s nervous stomach.
If the Little Prince doesn’t eat breakfast, his stomach acts up and it’s Vomit Time. But getting him to take some nourishment in the morning is like trying to convince people to get inoculated in the 1700s. In other words, a huge bloody neverending apocalyptic battle. It is made easier by the fact that I give him two choices of things I’d prefer he eats. “Do you want toast or Cheerios?” “Do you want oatmeal or toast?” That gives him an illusion of choice, which is something a five-year-old cherishes.
So last night I went to the grocery store to get milk and other things, and the Teen went with me. Standing in the cereal aisle, I asked him to please for the love of God pick something you’ll eat in the mornings? Because he is another one with a nervous stomach and food issues, and it’s just simpler to have him pick what he wants. He picks Honeycombs and Frosted Flakes, and away we go. With me muttering to myself that I might as well just buy him a bag of sugar and make a cardboard teat for him to suck it through. To which he replies, “Are those pecan-caramel turtles in the basket? Where did those come from? Who’s going to eat those, I wonder?”
Goddamn sarcastic kids.
Cut to this morning. The Little Prince is all cute, rubbing his eyes and blinking sleepily. I start the morning ritual, only this time I am Sooper Sneaky. “Do you want Cheerios or Honeycomb?”
Because it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other, the important thing is that he eats something, for Chrissake. I don’t care if it’s sugary, he just has to have something in the tum-tum so I’m not mopping up bile.
“Honeycomb?” he asks, screwing up his face like I’ve just asked him “Lizards or flies?”
I pull the box out, show him the front. “This is Honeycomb.” His eyes light up. I pull out the Cheerios and show him. “These are Cheerios.”
“Honeycomb!” he says, and stares enraptured at the box as I fill his bowl. The rapture gives way to confusion. “It smaller than box on!” Translation: Hey! It’s smaller than the illustration on the front of the box! I’ve been gypped!
“That’s so you can fit more in your bowl,” I say. I think, Madison Avenue is leading me down the primrose path. I’ve just sold cereal to a five-year-old. I’m going to hell.
“OOOOOOOOh,” he says, serenely, and goes back to staring at the box like it’s a television.
“Now after this you can play with your bubbles,” I say, because we ran out of bubble solution two days ago and it was like the Titanic went down. Major disaster, so the most important purchase last night wasn’t milk, it was a huge container of bubble sauce.
“Mum,” he informs me, “I need to eat Honeycomb. Then I play bubble.” He takes one last longing look at the box, then skips into the other room to wait for his cereal to appear on the table. (I had him carry his own cereal bowl ONCE. Never again. Do you know how hard it is to pick soggy Honey Smacks out of the carpet?)
Would you believe (she asks rhetorically) he ate every damn one of them? Every single loving one. Smacking his lips and saying, “Dis is GOOOOOOOOD,” four or five times.
Welcome to parenthood, Lili. An occupation involving publicity stunts, crafty political maneuvering, Mafia-like indirect enforcement, and pounds of sheer cunning as well as the ability to take a horrendous amount of irony on a daily basis.
I love this job.
