Cereal Box Propaganda

I never buy sugary cereals. Not even the "Look at me, I have 30% less sugar which is still way more than any preschooler needs at 8 am!" kinds. The most sugary that my kids get is Honey Nut Cheerios, and even that is a rarity. So imagine their glee when we stopped at the Shoppette (everywhere but on an Army base, these are known as "convenience stores") to grab milk and cereal for breakfast the next morning, and the pickings were slim, so I got Lucky Charms. Yes, Lucky Charms. Hey, at least its General Mills, so its made with WHOLE GRAIN!!! As it so politely reminds you in extra large letters on the front of the box. And this particular box is a limited edition. You see, it has DOUBLE SHOOTING STARS! Oh my dear, can we possibly handle so much excitement? This stuff has 120 calories per cup, and thats without the milk. Only 1 fat gram. 13 g of sugar. I've slacked off on my label reading, but I don't think anyone needs 13 g of sugar per one cup of anything. Except maybe ice cream. and coffee. coffee without sugar is bad. Anyway, point being, yes, I gave in and bought sugary cereal. Now, on the back of this box of magically delicious cereal, you find the "Legend of the Shooting Star." Which is just plain silly. Apparently, they make leprechauns fly. So then I turn it to look at the side of the box. And I think they're trying to suck our kids into some creepy magically delicious marshmallow cult.
"The Magic of the Charms" it says. "Lucky's Charms hold the secrets to fantastical fun; discover the special magic of each one."
Okay, now, lets discover the magic!
The Rainbow is for travel. What? Rainbows are for travelling? WOW! I mean, I knew that they led you to the pot of gold, but I didn't realize that they are also actually a method of transportation as well! Amazing.
Shooting Stars, as previously noted, are for flight. Really, i'm just not buying it. Do you actually ride on them? If so, how does one catch a Shooting Star? Or, just if you see one, you can fly? Do you have to be a leprechaun? Because all I ever heard was that you just wish on them. But, come on, really, they are usually just airplanes anyway. Which, now that I think of it does make sense. Yes, I can get totally on board with the "shooting stars are for flight." duh.
Balloons - "Float" - well now, really, is that magic? You see, its this gas called "helium." Say it with me class, "He - lee - um" and it makes balloons float! Its really not rocket science... or magic. So thats just silly. Couldn't they come up with something better than that. How about balloons being for laser vision or something like that? Makes about as much sense as some of these other ones.
Hearts are for Life. Okay, that one DOES make sense, seeing as how its darn hard to live without a heart. I like it symbolizing love, personally, but I suppose "life" will do. But, thats really not magic either, its biology. Or anatomy. Or some of both, I don't know. Hey, I never claimed to be a scientist!
Now, this is where they really lose me.
The Blue Moon - yes, that electric blue half moon, its for invisibility. WHAT?!?! I'm telling you, they slowly suck the kidlets in with travelling on Rainbows, flying on Shooting Stars, floating in/on/under/whatever Balloons, living because of the Heart... and then say, "and lookie, the electric blue moon will make you invisible!"
Purple Horseshoe (because so many horseshoes are purple) are for speed. Really? I always thought they were for good luck. I guess horses are fast. But who needs horses when you invisibly travel on Rainbows and fly on Shooting Stars?
The Green Hat with Four Leaf Clover is for luck. Finally - a meaning that makes sense! We all know that 4 leaf clovers make us lucky! They threw that one in there just so that in case you were thinking "hmm, this all sounds a little fishy," you'd now say "oh yeah, yeah, this is okay, not creepy at all..."
But finally, the Pot of Gold, its for illumination. Illlumination? No, you see, the gold, that makes you rich. The Pot of Gold is for shopping. Or perhaps for the melting and making of jewelry. But illumination??
And the sad thing is, the kids around the world are reading this cereal box, while in a sugar induced hyper trance, and they get sucked into The Evil Lucky Charms Kiddie Cult.
I'm SO glad my kids can't read. They'd get a Ballon and jump out the window with it in the middle of the night so that they could float up to that Shooting Star (airplane) that they just saw so that they could fly over to to the Moon to get invisible so that they could stealthily get to the Rainbow and find the Pot of Gold and be illuminated. But instead, they'd fall down very very hard onto our patio and then I'd have to sue that evil leprechaun