The Cereal Killer

Back in my college days, food was a very precious commodity. The average college student is flat-broke, so anything you can do to prevent losing what you had, you took action to make sure of it. But there are some people who don't care about your lack of funds...

Meet Dre. Dre was notorious for freeloading. If he could get any item of food from you, he would. He claimed that he never had any money or groceries, but was the fattest guy on the hall. Dre's food drug of choice: cereal.

Like clockwork, Dre would stalk the 3rd floor dormitory hall on Saturday mornings with an empty mixing bowl. He would knock on doors to try to bum as much cereal as he could to fill his bowl. Sometimes by the time he made it back to his room, he would have four different cereal mixes in his bowl from multiple people who were generous enough to spare a little of theirs. Dre was a cereal killer living amongst us.

I was two doors down from him, so normally when I heard him knocking next door, I knew the deal. Now at first, I didn't mind donating a little cereal for the cause, but after a while, I started to feel like I was being part of a "morning meal shakedown."

(sounds of someone banging on the door)

"Q? Tim? It's Dre!"

"What do you want, man?"

"Let me holla at some cereal, dog!"

That was his famous quote. How can you "holla" at cereal? Anyway, this went on for a semester and a half until one day, Dre overdid it. I was home for the weekend this particular Saturday morning and Tim allowed Dre into the room. Tim was not paying close attention to the portion size Dre was getting and he took advantage of Tim's distraction to ironing clothes and made off with 3/4, yes that's 75%, of my Fruity Pebbles.


I returned to school Sunday evening and immediately noticed the carnage. "Tim, why is all of this cereal on my desk?"

"Dre probably did that."

I shook the box only to see a few lonely crumbs that were hardly enough for a couple of servings. "You let him eat this much cereal, man? This box was unopened!"

"My bad, Q. I wasn't paying attention. I'll get you some more."

"Nah, this has to stop! We're going to the grocery store before next Saturday."

Dre had to be taught a life lesson. That following Thursday evening, Tim and I drove into town and went to the grocery store. I bought a box of Captain Crunch and a box of King Vitaman. I'm sure all of you have heard of Captain Crunch, but very few have heard of King Vitaman. King Vitaman is a very cheap cereal that has tons of fiber. One bowl of KV would send you to the bathroom for hours. It didn't just contain fiber, it contained more fiber than raw twine. Also, it looked and tasted almost identical to Captain Crunch.

The plan was to swap bags from the Captain Crunch and King Vitaman. But, roomdog, Tim, wanted to take things a bit further. Tim bought a box of laxative gel caps. We used a knife to split the gel caps in half and squeeze the contents onto the KV cereal. We laughed like school kids as we squeezed the contents of six laxative gel caps onto the top of the cereal kernels and let it absorb its way inside. We then shook up the box to mix it in. We couldn't wait until Saturday morning!


That next Saturday, Dre shows up like clockwork with his bowl and shovel-sized spoon. "Let me holla at some cereal, dog!"

I didn't want to let Dre in the room because I knew I wouldn't be able to contain my laughter. Besides, I needed him to take the entire box of cereal without arousing suspicion. If he came in and I just said "take it," he would know something was wrong. So, I barely cracked the door and looked out at him and whispered, "Look, my girl is in here. I'll let you have some cereal, but if you get more than just a serving, we're moving some furniture up in this dorm! Don't kill all of my cereal, Dre!"

For the slang-impaired, "moving furniture" indicates a very physical and fast-moving fight.

I knew that he would not be able to control himself when it came to eating a reasonable serving size. I was counting on it. I pushed the box of cereal through the opening of the door and Dre happily took it. Was my girlfriend in the room with me at the time? Nope. I just needed Dre to think that I'd rather pass him the box than be bothered right then.

I closed the door and heard his lazy butt slide his house shoes down the hall and close his door. Tim and I went up and down the hall, knocking on doors, to inform some of the other cereal victims what we had done. Everyone was cracking up when we explained the plan. After notifying the other victims of the cereal killings, we sat and waited...

Roughly six or seven hours later while Tim and I were playing Super Nintendo, we heard a knock at the door. We answered it and it was our friend Kenny from down the hall. It took him 30 seconds to suppress his laughter just to get his words out. "Yo, Dre is in the bathroom, man, and he's blowing it up!"


We knocked on a few more doors and all of us ran down the hall to the west wing bathroom. We cracked open the door and were greeted by the sound of "Dre's symphony." Machine gun squirts brought us to tears of laughter outside of the bathroom door. (In fact, The Mrs. just asked me what I'm laughing at now as I type this because it's still funny to me.) Dude sounded hollow as his life force continued to be drained on the porcelain throne. I slowly laughed my way back to my dorm room.

30 minutes later Dre comes down the hall and knocks on the door. I open the door and see a dehydrated 6"3" figure standing in front of me. He looked as if he'd just finished a marathon, but he wasn't sweating. With a straight face, I said, "Where's the cereal I gave you this morning?"

"I know you did something to the cereal, Q. Bernard told me."

At the time, I didn't care someone told him. I tensed up as I feared that furniture would be moved at this point. But the code on campus was not to come off weak. So, with the straightest face I could make, I said, "I want a new box of Fruity Pebbles by next Saturday."

"After what you did to me you want me to buy you a new box?"

"Next Saturday, Dre!"

I slammed the door in his face and then turned around and exhaled. I was by no means a fighter and I didn't want to spend the rest of my college days looking over my shoulder for payback. But, I had to let him know I wasn't afraid of him. Although Dre was a sloppy, dorky, pear-shaped, short T-Rex-arms-having dude, I didn't want to throw down with him.

Next Saturday morning, I heard a knock at my door. I opened the door and Dre very aggressively shoved a new, and most importantly, untampered box of Fruity Pebbles into my chest and walked off. As he was walking back towards his room, I said with a smirk, "Yo, Dre? Let me holla at some milk, dog!"