THE COMPULSION OF RICE KRISPIES TREATS

The Misfortune of Having a Big Sister. A comedy in two sentences.

Monkey Boy: Sissy, you just hit me.

The Girl: Oh, did I?

The Plight of Having a Little Brother. A tragedy in three sentences.

The Girl: Momma, do you have a new razor I can have?

Monkey Boy: Whatcha need it for? You gonna shave your nose hair?

 We made a large pan of Rice Krispies Treats, and by we, I mean the Girl made them while I supervised the process. I figured that I needed to encourage her culinary skills so that she would be able to survive on more than ramen noodles, microwave popcorn, and pizza in the eventuality that she will leave home for college in four years or so. Rice Krispies Treats are a cheap student essential that can be made with nothing more than three ingredients and a hot pot. Trust me, I know.

When the treats were finished and cooling restfully in the 9” x 13” glass casserole dish, Monkey Boy walked into the kitchen and drooled. “We have Rice Krispies Treats! I’ve had these before,” he said. “But I’ve had them with marshmallows.”

“These have marshmallows, too,” I replied. “It’s all mixed.”

His eyes widened and his mouth gaped in astonishment, as though Rice Krispies Treats were the desert of deserts. “Thank you for making these treats.”

“Sissy did most of the work,” I said, making sure that credit—and blame—were appropriately assigned.

“Thanks, Sissy,” he shouted to his sister who was already in another room texting her friends. He turned to me and asked, “Can we have some now?”

I shook my head and told him to wait.

About an hour later…

Monkey Boy found me and said, “It’s been an hour, and the Rice Krispies Treats are cool. Can we have some now?”

After a few more minutes, I sauntered into the kitchen and cut the treats into 16 squares, although the recipe said to cut them into 12 squares, which seemed just a mite overindulgent and excessive to me. Monkey Boy watched me carefully and measuredly, calculating to the 100th of an inch the size and density of each square. He then grabbed the largest one in the dish and danced off to tell the Girl that she, too, could have one of the giant squares of gooey yum-o-licious-ness. (It’s a word.)

About that time, B wandered into the kitchen and said, “Those pieces are huge. We should cut them smaller…,” and he promptly picked up the knife and cut one of the large pieces into four smaller pieces. “There, that’s better. That’s the size my mom used to cut them so that everyone was assured to get a Rice Krispies Treat.”

“Your mom fed an army of neighborhood kids?”

“No, but everyone in the house loved the treats, and if left to our device, we would have eaten them all…”

His reasoning baffled me. There were five of them in his family. They would have eaten them all regardless of size.

“I’m not cutting them smaller. If you want one of the smaller ones, go ahead,” I said as I pushed the smaller pieces toward him. He vacuously looked at me. Then he snatched the second-largest piece and ran out of the kitchen behind Monkey Boy.

The Girl skipped into the kitchen and took the third-largest piece. She took a bite and skipped out calling behind her, “Thank you, Momma.”

I took a piece—without comparing size—and smothered half of it in melted dark chocolate. I then placed it in the freezer so that the chocolate would cool and harden.

A little while later…

Monkey Boy tiptoed down the stairs, crouched low on the floor and pressed himself against the wall, inching his way quietly toward the kitchen, except I saw and heard him. “Whatcha doing, Monkey Boy?”

“Nothin’.” Except it wasn't nothin’. He made his way into the kitchen and snagged himself another Rice Krispies Treat. Once in hand, I can only imagine that he thought dashing through the halls was better than inching along the walls because he flew from the kitchen through the entryway and almost made it up the stairs when I called out, “Whatcha got?”

He replied with a muffled, “Nothin’.” Actually, it could be thought less of the word and more as a garbled approximation of the word nothin’ , the first syllable low and smothered, the second ending on a warble, as surely his mouth was stuffed with half of a giant Rice Krispies Treat square.

“That’s your last one for the night,” I called out behind him.

“Mmmpfrokay.” Then he disappeared upstairs.

Not long after that…

I went into the kitchen to not only retrieve my chocolate-covered treat—which I magnanimously split with B—but also to properly store the remaining Rice Krispies Treats so that there would still be treats for the next day and the next.

Late that night, way later than bedtime, B found Monkey Boy in the kitchen, who was staring at the empty Rice Krispies Treat dish and tearing up, “Where are all the treats?”

“What? There’s none left? I guess we ate the rest of them,” B said.

Monkey Boy’s mouth dropped open, “You mean that you and Momma sat down here and ate all the treats? That’s not fair.”

B, an eternal jokester and sometimes polemist, decided not to torture the boy any longer, “No, we didn’t eat all the Rice Krispies Treats. Momma put them away for tomorrow.”

Monkey Boy dried his tears and hugged his dad, “Thanks and by the way, I like how Momma cuts the Rice Krispies Treats better.” 

But before he left the room…

Monkey Boy scanned the kitchen’s open shelves for the treats. From his 4’10” vantage point he must have spied them on top of the refrigerator in a basket behind the reusable water bottles and under the insulated lunch boxes where I placed them because the next morning as the Girl and I were upstairs talking about how to rearrange her room now that she’s a high schooler, we heard a kitchen stool squeak across the floor and bump into the refrigerator. (It’s a very distinct sound.) We then heard the pop of a zip-topped baggie and the rustling of some plastic. The Girl looked at me and left the room. A couple of minutes later, they both came upstairs with treats in their hands.

Hey, at least they were eating cereal for breakfast. (They will both do just fine in college.)