Warning: Many unpleasant things go into and come out of virtually every hole in the author’s body during the course of this story.  Be warned.

This is a morality tale gone wrong.  I am, by nature, a hoarder of money.  Why live in a nice apartment when you can live in a dumpy place that costs a third as much?  In college, these tendencies were only exacerbated further.  After all, I was paying copious amounts of money on a private education.  Why would I fritter my remaining scratch on a nice dinner when I could get free pizza by feigning interest in the situation in Tibet?

Even away from campus, my spendthrift tendencies were hardly altered.  In the grocery store, every purchase was driven by a categorically imperative “is this the absolute minimum I can pay for this product?”  It was no surprise then, when, on one such grocery-shopping trip, I found myself in the cereal aisle, regarding with approval an endless wall of options, arranged by brand into brightly colored phalanxes.  My gaze lingered, not upon this bounty, but on the shelves themselves, as I scanned the metal scaffolding for the telltale stickers that belied a steep discount.

Tightwads love cereal.  It stores well, requires a minimum of preparation for a male with college-level culinary skills and- most of all- it’s cheap and filling.  At this time, I was tipping the scale well north of 300 pounds, and (as they say where I come from) I could eat something fierce.  A two-for-one deal could not only make my day, but also provide life-affirming validation.

Fortune smiled.  I spotted a discount tag midway down the aisle.  Like a beefy jungle cat, I moved in.  Froot Loops were on sale: 2 for $4.  I had already glad-handed several boxes into my cart when I spotted a second, partially hidden discount label.  A second brand was on sale: Monkey O’s.  “Fruit Rings!” a capering cartoon primate exclaimed.  They looked like Froot Loops.  They were the same size as Froot Loops.  But they were only 2 for $3.89.

In my miserly experience, off-brand cereal is extremely comparable in both taste and quality to name-brand cereal.  Furthermore, one is also far less likely to inadvertently purchase the wrong type of cereal (i.e.,generic original vs. honey-nut breakfast rings) than, say, in the complicated world of generic soda (is this generic coke or pepsi?).

That left only the prestige factor to consider.  Was it worth sacrificing dignity at the register to save 11 cents?

Damn right it was.

Inordinately pleased with my fiscal savviness, I returned home, where I promptly opened my Monkey O’s and began to eat them dry.  I flicked on the TV.  There was a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon on.  It was white man’s kryptonite.  I sat down with my cereal.  Slightly less than 6 hours later, I had eaten a box and a half.  I vaguely remember regretting not having bought more.  

After hearing this epic confession of nerdiness, it may be surprising to learn that I had a date later that night.  I took the little lady out for Mexican.  Mmm, Mexican food and dry cereal.  Lost in the beauty of my companion’s eyes, I barely noticed that my enchiladas tasted a little funky.

The evening was moving along splendidly.  I had maneuvered my date back to her dorm room and had employed a series of primitive but ultimately effective seduction techniques.  We moved from the couch to the bed.  This was good.

No sooner had we settled onto the comforter than a massive rumble came from my stomach.  It was so loud and out of place that we both stopped, staring at my midsection.  Like an Italian baritone, my stomach set forth again, bellowing in rage.  This second emission was accompanied by a sinking feeling of doom.

You know how when you first feel that you might throw up it’s already too late.  That’s what this was, to an insanely advanced degree.  I went from fine to “I’m going to vomit” in about 5 seconds.  I muttered something about to my date about being right back and tore out of the room for the bathroom, where I hurled myself at the toilet.  Not a moment too soon.  My eyes screwed shut and the muscles in my torso tensed painfully as I returned to sender everything from my recent Mexican adventure.

Speaking of being south of the border, I was still on my knees, worshipping the porcelain throne, when I became aware of a new disturbance in my colon.  Thoughts of making some sort of puking rally proved overly optimistic.  I struggled to turn around, dropping my pants in a race against the clock.  It was close, too close.  As I was aligning my ass with the sweet spot on the toilet, a series of wet bangs rang out that nearly lifted me off the seat.  In a heartbeat, the strength ran out of my knees and I collapsed on the toilet in the blissful aftermath of shitbirth.  For a moment, I savored the simple joy of purging, then I turned to assess the damage.

Oh boy.

After successfully avoiding soiling myself for over fifteen years, I had officially fallen off the wagon.  But there was more news, something that (if possible) made the fact that I had crapped myself pale in comparison.

My poo was green.  Bright, irridescent green.  Chunks of reddish peppers floated here and there.  It looked like I had shat an irradiated teenage mutant ninja turtle.

I sat there, stupidly pondering my own excrement.  For some reason, my thoughts flashed back to a college admissions interview I had endured a few years prior.  Our interviewer, a kindly older man who was an alumni of the institution I sought entrance to, had been interviewing both myself and a girl from a neighboring school when the topic turned to our passions.  My answer had rambled a bit, but it was genius compared to my cohort, who confidently asserted “I have scatological interests.”  Both the interviewer and I had been unable to suppress a chuckle at this foible.  The girl looked confused and hurt until one of us explained that she had intimated that she enjoyed the study of feces, then she just looked mortified.  I got in.  She didn’t.  On the other hand, at least one of us had developed scatological interests.

Naturally, the question that troubled me was why the hell my poo was so green.  There only seemed to be two possibilities: I was producing the substance or had ingested it.  The first exclamation seemed dubious.  My body had never before produced anything that wasn’t earth tone.  That left it to something I had eaten or drank.  But I’d only eaten-

Aha.  It appeared there was one key difference between Froot Loops and Monkey Os: while the food coloring in the former was readily absorbed by my digestive system, the dye in the latter was not.  I had been turned into a walking factory for producing green Play-Doh.

In my morbidly fascinating study of my own shit, I had failed to notice that another person had entered the bathroom and occupied the stall to my immediate right.  I remained oblivious until they yelled “Courtesy flush, dammit!”  This request startled me, prompting me to inhale a little too hard.  The extant stench hit me again and overwhelmed my still-delicate sensibilities.  I had turned my head toward the sound of the voice when I purged for the second time, and a second stream of vomit projected from my mouth in his direction.  Some of it hit the wall, but majority of it squeaked through the gap underneath the stall’s partition.  There was a frightened yelp and then a shocked “Man Jesus!” as my man-made title wave of green vomit whooshed in.  Then more cursing.  The next thing I knew, the guy in the next stall had taken off, leaving me alone with my shame.

I sat there for maybe another minute, wondering how I was going to explain why I was covered in green vomit and shit to my date.  Then I heard voices.  One of them sounded like the guy I had just surprised, and it wasn’t too hard a stretch to surmise that he had returned, possibly with friends, to confront the guy who threw up on him.  In my weakened state, the last thing I wanted was a confrontation.

I tore out of the stall, wanting to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible.  The bathroom was split in two parts, one that housed the showers, and a larger room that housed the sinks and toilets.  The door to the bathroom opened into the latter, I moved into the shower room and hid in one of the stalls.  Just as a slid the plastic curtain across, the door banged open.  I heard angry voiced discussing the formidable mess, replaying how it played out.  If they searched the bathroom, they would find me and there might be a bad scene.  At this point, I had not seen the shower rape scene in American History X, or I would not have done what I did next.  I turned on the shower and stripped off my rapidly soaking clothes, throwing them into the corner.  I frantically scrubbed off all trace of sickness and turned off the shower.  As soon as the water stopped, I stuck my head out and yelled “Hey, what happened over there?”

“Some guy made a huge mess over on the other side,” one of the guys said.  I noticed his Pumas were covered with a thin scrim of what appeared to be green-tinged vomit.  “You know the guy?”

“No, but the son of a bitch stole my towel on the way out!” I said. 

“Can you believe that shit man?” the guy with puke on his shoes asked.

“Asshole,” I agreed.  They felt so bad for me they gave me a towel.  At this point, I had been gone over twenty minutes and returned to the room wearing only a towel.

‘Where were you?” my very shocked date asked.

“Oh, I took a shower,” I answered as casually as possible.

“Where’d your clothes go?  Where’d you get the towel?” she asked?

“One of the guys down the hall gave me one.  Real sweetie.”  It was a long shot, but I’d hoped by playing it gay I would be able to draw her in.  This time, faux-bisexual Noah was sent packing, albeit with some women’s clothing to drive home in.  This was probably a good thing: after the adrenaline wore off, I was violently sick for another 24 hours and, you guessed it, still suffering the wrath of the green-dyed monster. 

Monkey Os, as far as I know, are still sold as food.