What happened to the marshmallows in Lucky Charms?*

Did you ever get a hankering for some cereal after not eating cereal in forever? What do you do? Well, I'm guessing you go to the grocery store and buy some cereal and have a bowl. Then you either eat the entire box within a few days or leave it to get stale on top of your refrigerator and eventually throw it away. These are the types of things we take for granted in our every day lives--being able to go out and buy Lucky Charms when the mood strikes us. And then throwing the entire box away after eating one bowl.

So about three weeks ago, I had an incredible hankering for some Honey Nut Cheerios and Lucky Charms. The cereal is available here, but it's like $7 a box which is just absurd. Mr. ATK would never let me spend that much on a box of cereal, and I wouldn't really want to, especially when you can purchase it elsewhere for cheaper. And that elsewhere happens to be Amazon.com. On amazon the cereal is considerably cheaper, however you have to purchase it in bulk. So after having a craving for cereal three weeks ago, Mr. ATK and I have finally received three boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and a 46 ounce box of Lucky Charms. Lesson learned: Living in India doesn't make impulse cereal buying impossible, it's just when you finally get your cereal a month has passed, the impulse is gone and now you have 7 pounds of cereal. 

But I do not regret our cereal purchase. In fact, I had a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast this morning for the first time in years. It was wonderful. But what the hell happened to the marshmallows in Lucky Charms?! Do you remember when they used to have the red balloons, yellow diamond, green clover, purple horseshoe? Let me refresh your memory:

Note the marshmallows are like actual shapes (more or less). I can tell that its an orange star or whatever.

So what the eff happened between between 1985 and now? While I enjoyed my bowl of delicious Lucky Charms, I could not tell what the marshmallows were supposed to be. I'm not expecting them to look like they do in the commercial any more than I expect a Quarter Pounder with Cheese I buy from the McDonald's drive-thru to look like the Quarter Pounder they show on the McDonald's commercials. But at least I can tell that the little hockey puck-esque sandwich with the crooked piece of cheese is a cheeseburger. I don't know what the marshmallows are any more. The Purple horseshoe still looks like a horseshoe, more or less. And the red balloon is a round object, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. But the rest of them? What the hell? From what I can make out there is some sort of green square with a dark green "x" on it. Not exactly the green clover from days of yore. And then there seem to be a bunch of white marshmallows with some sort of colored stripe on them. What are those? Is it a volcano? With colorful lava? It's vaguely shaped like a triangle.  

You know what makes this all extra sad? I remember in college haughtily telling a friend at the dining hall one night that the bowl of Lucky Charms he was enjoying for dinner was clearly off brand because Lucky Charms had purple horseshoes, blue moons, yellow diamonds, etc. and the slop he was eating had random shit like green squares with dark green 'x'es and white thingys with weirdo color stripes on them. Only now as I stared at my bowl of Lucky Charms this morning did I realize that my friend was not eating off-brand Lucky Charms all those years ago. So, Kyung, I apologize for making fun of the cereal you were eating for dinner that night back in 1999. 

Also, apparently Lucky Charms changed their marshmallow press at least 13 years ago. Who knew? 

*Warning: This blog has nothing to do with India. Don't read it unless you are interested in the minute details of breakfast cereals. Wait? What? You already read the whole thing? Well, I put this asterisk next to the title for a reason. It's always important to check the footnotes.