The Countdown

It was the first day of summer, no school for three whole months, and I was up and awake at 6:30am eating a giant bowl of Bosco Bonanza’s Frosted Gold Rush (covered in two extra scoops of sugar from my mom’s sugar bowl) and watching my favorite cartoon: Super Dog Saves the City.

“Hey Kiddos! Time for a commercial, stay right there, we’ll be back in two shakes of Super Dog’s leg!”

A commercial started up with a bunch of cool kids skateboarding through a park with their hats on backward yelling “yeah” and “hey, man” through a park. Then they stop in a field where one of the kids has a giant oversized remote control.

“Watch this,” he says and stabs his finger into the button.

The ground rumbles and cracks open to reveal a giant rocket that explodes into the sky. “Whoaaaaa!” the kids all gasp in unison.

“Hey Kids, do you want to win your very own flying rocket?! You can! Check the details on participating boxes of cereal…”

I barely let the announcer finish when I picked up the box of Bosco Bonanza’s Frosted Gold Rush. The goofy miner’s partially-toothed grin smiling back at me as he held up two clumps of golden honey cereal blobs. There it was, on the back of the box: a rocket.

The instructions said that it would be 15 box tops coupons from any Harlock Brand Cereal mailed to the company before the end of summer would have a rocket returned back in the mail.

I poured the remainder of the Frosted Gold Rush into my bow, letting cereal bits and milk rain onto the carpet below.

“Mom! MOM! We are out of Frosted Gold Rush! We need to go to the store.”

I tore the box top off the box and kept it under my pillow. Every night I would dream about the postman delivering my rocket in the mail. How would it arrive? Would they need one of those oversized trucks to carry it?

Two weeks went by and I finished off a box of Savage Cherry Clusters and Magic Wheat Things.

I imagined the entire neighborhood coming to the field behind my house. The mayor would need to set up a stage for the crowd that would gather.

Two more weeks went by and I had a topper from the box of Rainbow Marshmallow Bears and Cosmic Fire Crunch.

I wondered if I could ride in the rocket itself or maybe I would just use Mr. Simmons’ old cat to be my astronaut.

“You can’t have cereal for breakfast and lunch,” my mom would tell me as she snubbed her cigarette out on a moldy leftover sandwich.

The weeks continued to go by and we got closer and closer to the end of the summer. I collected two box top from Captain Fruity’s Melon Rings, another from Miss Vicky’s Raisins and Rice, and one from Stars and Stripe Chunks. Most of the box tops I had were all from my all-time favorite cereal: Bosco Bonanza’s Frosted Gold Rush.

When I finally had 15 box tops, I stuffed them in an envelope and sent them off to the Harlock Brand Cereal Company.

Then I had to wait.

I checked the mail every day. Every hour. I dreamed of rocket ships and aliens and new planets to explore.

It was all I could do to wait, patiently and quietly alone in my room, and imagine the countdown of the rocket.

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

One…

BLAST OFF!

The mailbox continued to be empty.

Then, with just a few days left of my summer break, a box arrived with my name on it. It was my rocket!

It was much smaller than I expected, but I was sure it was just the first box to arrive. Maybe it was just the instructions? I took it to my room and tore the packaging apart.

Inside the box was a plastic and foam rocket launcher kit, about two feet high when assembled right. It came with a plastic plunger to shoot the rocket into the air.

“Maybe this is just a model of the real rocket,” I told myself as I set it up in my bedroom.

I assembled and set up the rocket and stepped on the cushioned plunger.

“Fwoop,” went the rocket as it barely bounced off the stand and flopped to the floor.

My mom watched from my doorway in her dirty pink robe. The curlers in her hair bobbed as she inhaled from her cigarette. She stubbed the remnants out on my doorway, flicked the cigarette at the rocket, and turned to walk out of the room.

“I bet you wished you had friends,” she said with a belch.

THE END