She had asked for a Rice Crispy Treat.
Dammit. My heart leapt into my throat. The tag on the tray said Marshmallow Bar. Can’t she read?
I couldn’t let her call it a Rice Crispy Treat, not with those rumors floating around. We never paid for the right to use the brand and if THEY caught wind of it, we’d be in trouble.
I must have had a deer in headlights look on my face because she repeated her order.
“Rice Crispy Treat?” she said, pointing.
Those elves are treacherous... I mean they’re Evil. He’s not called Snap for show. That little guy is a knee breaker and he’s crazy.
You ever wonder WHY the Original Boo-Berry went off the market? It’s because they never found him, not after he started talking smack about Snap and his brothers. (Subsequently, they pulled a "Darren From Bewitched" and "reintroduced" him.) After that, Cap’n Crunch had to house all of the General Mills guys in his Vitamin Fortified Compound in the West Indies.
“How ‘bout a Marshmallow Bar?”
“No, I’d rather have that Rice Crispy Treat.”
Part of me wanted to know how those power hungry imps could have a lock on the whole crispy rice and marshmallow fluff combination, anyway. That’s like Microsoft trying to copyright the letter M.
“Are you DEAF? RICE...CRISPY...TREAT.”, she signed.
There’s a reason you’ve never seen Cocoa Pebbles Treats, you know. Flintstone has a family to think of. After The Cap’n left, Fred replaced Dino with a Veloceraptor. Barney and Betty took Pebbles and Bam Bam and fled to Mexico.
“Ma’am, we don’t HAVE any Rice Crispy Treats...HOW ABOUT THIS MARSHMALLOW BAR?”
I had heard that Crackle had subcontracted alot of their Copyright Enforcement work to Tony The Tiger and his Cereal Assassin Squad.
“That’s a RICE CRISPY TREAT! Are you going to sell it to me or not?”
In the back of my mind I had wished that I had the money for some kind of protection. I had turned down Quisp’s offer. It had been a little steep, but looking back, I’d pay twice the price. The more this woman insisted, the greater the risk to my well-being.
Fucking Corporate wanted to sell these stupid pastries, not me. I tried to tell them about the risk of such a venture.
Nobody ever listens to me...
“Ma’am, don’t make me ask you to leave. This is a MARSHMALLOW BAR.”
The Keebler Elves had wanted to branch out into the breakfast business a while back. Their tree mysteriously burned to the ground one night, along with their cereal plans. My shop would be next if this lady didn’t shut her cake hole.
“Fine. You call it whatever you want, but it’s still a RICE CRISPY TREAT!”
I winced as she produced her cash. She sneered at me, grotesquely chewing a huge bite.
I thought of all of the strange clicks and beeps on my phone and the mysterious cars slowly driving past the store.
As the glass door closed behind her, a nondescript black van pulled up to the curb. A furry orange arm with black stripes pulled her inside. Funny how his claws never looked that big on TV.
Her half eaten marshmallow bar skipped across the pavement, as the slider door slammed and the van screeched off...
I pulled my passport out of the drawer, and my emergency duffle out of the closet. I locked the front door and left the closed sign to lazily swing side to side on it’s nail.
Maybe Belgium, or Prague...
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