Afloat on a cheerio iz A no bran er raisin d’être vignette.

Mom called out my name as she madly dashed out the kitchen door!

“Matthew”, you need to get ready for school AT ONCE!

Mister Gruff (the grizzled bearish bus driver) just honked the horn! “He will not wait”!

She bellowed so loud as to exceed decibel threshold of tolerance.

Her angry, bellicose and carping, deplorable voice sounded muffled and could barely be heard among the clatter and din of screen mesh slamming against wooden portal separating me from waiting the right moment.

No sooner did the thought (if only there would be some way to avoid going to school and avoid dealing with the “Lizard” and “Volcano” two teachers who took especial loathing toward this geeky and nerdy kid) barely coalesce in mind than prestidigitation wrought wish come true.

Any dystopian escape plan or fantastical far fetched out of this world scheme would be far superior that feeling the dagger like nine inch nails of the former, or the fiery suffocating breath of the latter.

Even death be not proud would transcend a fate far more favorable than enduring the indiscriminate torture of either animalistic cruel “educator”!

Agog in a bog each cog of me dog gone eggnog fluidic grog head i.e. Icabod jiggled knowledge logged metamorphosis noggin offset per quintessential rogue switching thru uber veritable Wampanoag ‘xcellent Youngblood Zuni.

I suddenly realized (as if in a dream), that my whole body shrunk and tumbled into what looked like the most humungous size bowl of Cheerios cereal.

No matter escape impossible, I merely bobbed inside the deep dish of milk and cheerios poured by smallish sized hands moments ago.

The quick pitter-patter of approaching syncopated sinister footfalls upon wooden floor set me panicking and madly splashing about (in the I LOVE CHEERIOS BOWL) attempting to hide from mommy.

She entered with fury and slammed the front door with such wrath that seismologists probably suspected a deadly earthquake about to wreak havoc in Lower Merion.

“Matthew Scott”, I will not let you play hooky.

Without delay, I quickly and gingerly glided thru the mass of soggy cheerios.

Although most of the general mills “O” shaped cereal pieces happened to be saturated with milk, I did manage to locate one Siamese twin cheerios that allowed me to avoid drowning and perhaps ending up in the stomach of Twinkles (also known as Twinkie) the family cat.

She now loomed large like some magnified feline with a carnivorous, ferocious, and insidious meow.

I latched both hands the underside of these fused Cheerios, tried to keep out of sight from eyes that burned like red hot coals, and expected to be shaken from my precarious mooring from another bellow from mommy dearest or swallowed alive by Johah the whale of a feline.

Amen!

Without peering into the congealed blend of Cheerios slush (which slowly began to metamorphose into some miniature bog), she hunted around the more likely (and previous secret) hideouts blaring my name (in tandem with a string of colorful expletives), as a preliminary wrathful warning of some unpleasant fate that awaited this only not so prodigal son.

As those dreaded footsteps finally faded further from the eating area and began to traipse upstairs (with a logical presumption I scuttled either under my bed or in the closet), an attempt got made to pull myself up over the lip of the very slippery cereal bowl.

These deux feet equaled da feat on a par with Olympic trained athlete competing in the most difficult human race.

No matter how much effort I exerted to hoist this lighter than a dry Cheerio up over the edge (analogous to performing a pole vault), the lack of any foothold found me cascading with a splash into amidst the drenched kernels of cereal.

Aha!

Another thought occurred to this brain child of a mechanical engineer martian father, and malevolent mercurial mother.

Maybe I could vacuum up piranha style every last morsel and swell up like a small- scale beach ball.

Then I might be able to roll back and forth and knock this darned plastic bowl on the floor.

This idea quickly discarded with the idea of bloating like an engorged tick left an awful taste in my mouth.

Thus idle with ideas spooling (within this fleck of gray matter and frankly zapping at the speed of greased lightening), one after another far-fetched scheme dismissed.

Upon a sudden upwelling of inspiration (without encroachment from smart pet nor mommy dearest, a ridiculous notion continue to ping pong, and unthinkingly found me paddle ling, diving and stroking abreast (thy wash board stomach much the envy of every other aquatic member of the varsity swim team all across America), the willpower to spring sky-high whence regaining apropos sea legs found me to bear down with intent concentration breathing. aqua (or rather milky way) acrobatic aerial calisthenics might thine saving grace.

Thus from within each cell of thine being eyed fantasize bolting like a bat out of hell whence submerging thyself at the basin of this tureen.

With exertion mustered amidst every salutary cell, I managed to summon that first, middle and last ounce of effort from every cell of this shrunken being to perform a bank shot and catapult myself over the curled lip of this surreal fish bowl.

Like some free floating radical trapeze artist, the defiance per the laws of gravity sent me scaling high above the fruitful plane.

A sudden gust of wind from the fuming female furnace tossed, whipped and nearly creamed this itty-bitty boy into smithereens.

Fortunate that the banging screen door got wrenched awry saving this bite size kid from getting crushed.

Although just a whirling infinitesimal speck, I felt a cheerful disposition especially since circumstance carried me out of that ticky-tacky box (on the hillside) away from cruel mother who never failed to dish out fire and brimstone authoritarianism.

Free and em bowl dinned from (the kudos of Harry Houdini).