The Captain Crunch Caper

GUEST BLOG POST: This is one of the many nonsensical “big family” shenanigans we’ve had… #2 recently remembered this tale of yore and shares it here, in her own words. Take it away, Alexandra!

“It all started during the Spring of 22, on a crisp morning* (*ok I don’t actually remember what the weather was, but it sounds cool).

I had gotten up early* (*ok it was more like 9am, which, not too bad for a teenager).

The table was clean, except for one bowl.

A single cereal bowl had been savagely discarded on the table. Once the offending bowl was spotted, I went to investigate the scene.

The offending bowl was full of an *unidentifiable content*

(*ok that’s a little dramatic. It was Captain Crunch cereal, but it was that off–brand stuff you’d find in BJ’s with the depressingly bad knock–off name, so I’d consider that some unidentifiable content).

Who makes a bowl of cereal and doesn’t even eat it?! What was the point of pouring yourself a bowl in the first place, then??

When I took a full scan of the situation at hand, it was time to start asking questions. I couldn’t believe someone would leave a bowl on the table; how could someone be so lazy?!

(NOTE: This may have been a little hypocritical because I left stuff out all the time at this phase of life, but that’s totally beside the point).

For context, we all had a habit of leaving dishes out from breakfast, and Mom had recently put a rule in place forbidding any dirty dishes to be left behind on our table after breakfast (to avoida massive pile of unclaimed dirty dishes).

Mom’s rule had now been broken, and justice had to be served…. by me of course, cause I’m awesome.

So I asked each of my siblings if they’d left the bowl on the table. I didn’t expect it to be a big deal; after all, who lies about leaving a bowl on the table?

To my dismay, NO ONE confessed to the crime. Bastards.

The only person who was one hundred percent innocent was my older sister (#1), who’d gone to work very early that morning.

She was cleared early, but that still left four people who weren’t willing to admit they left the bowl.

IT WAS ONLY A BOWL OF CEREAL, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! There was literally NO REASON not to come forward.

I wasn’t satisfied with the answers I got; it was time to pull out the big guns.

Yeah, that’s right I did what had to be done, like an adult... I told my mom. She’d figure out who did it and yell at whoever it was.

Hear me out: I had the right intentions, sort of. I was mad that people were being disrespectful by leaving dishes. My mom’s a hard–working lady and I didn’t want people taking advantage of that…annnnd I wanted to see whoever did it get in a bunch of trouble for it, because priorities.

I learned the case STILL hadn’t been cracked an hour later. When Mom asked & still nobody came forward, that’s when things got down to business.

My mother and I are very similar, and, like me, she couldn’t handle the idea of someone lying right to her face, and about something this ridiculous, because WHY WOULD YOU?!

She called everyone down to the living room. Once everybody made it to the couch, it was time to settle this.

Mom opened with a series of questions, to narrow down the pool of suspects, The questions were simple:

 “What did you eat for breakfast this morning?”

and,

“What time did you eat this breakfast?”.

For the most part, everybody had solid answers, except for ONE.

Listen, I know eight years old is pretty young, but it’s no excuse to have holes in your story! My youngest brother’s (#6) account of his morning breakfast had some inaccuracies. He couldn’t seem to remember what exactly he ate that morning, & his answers kept changing each time he was asked.

Was this because he was 8, and 8y.o. kids can’t even remember to wash their hands in the bathroom, let alone what they ate for breakfast?

NO, of course not.

He obviously had to be the off–brand Captain Crunch bandit we’d been looking for!

The 8y.o’s sketchy story had everyone in agreement that it had to be him, but he’s a hard nut to crack & he wouldn’t confess. With a bit more questioning, he began to get upset, leading everyone to entertain the possibility that his story was sketchy because he was eight…

maybe.

So, Mom moved on to the next victim, my ten–year–old sister (#5). My 10y.o. sister is one of the sweetest people out there, wouldn’t hurt a fly, BUT that didn’t mean she was incapable of this extremely lazy breakfast crime. When asked about her morning breakfast, the 10y.o. confidently claimed she hadn’t had breakfast that morning.

However, I believe the tension of the situation led her to cast doubt onto her story. As an attempt to find some sort of solution, my 10y.o. sister proposed that she might of ate it in her sleep, which, is a dubious alibi at best.

Let that sink in, the tension over a CEREAL BOWL was so high that my sister began to entertain that she ATE IT IN HER SLEEP.

Her theory that she was a sleep-walking cereal–muncher was not taken seriously, but it did make for a great laugh.

The sleep eating proposal was enough to rule her out because nobody who’s guilty gets that desperate to find an explanation, you know?

By this point, Mom was not having it. This had started off as something silly, but it had dragged on for too long. We’d graduated from the innocent inquiring phase to the “I need to be able to trust you kids” phase of the situation.

Yup that’s right: the ultimate mom manipulation tactic had been pulled out. You know a situation is getting dark when your mom threatens to CHECK FOR FINGERPRINTS.

(To be fair, sometimes mom really does pull some impressive detective stuff, especially when she find things out of thin air that I can spend an hour looking for).

This was getting serious: Mom was threatening to dust for prints, and the plan to visit a water park that day was now in jeopardy unless someone came forward!

For a kid that’s the ultimate threat, But Momma wasn’t about to back down.

(Yes, we still went to the water park in the end.)

My 16y.o. brother’s defense for his innocence was simple, yet,very concrete. When accused, he exclaimed that he couldn’t be responsible for the bowl because he would never eat the cereal.

Why may you ask?

Because it was off brand, which is vastly inferior to the name-brand, so 

a). he wouldn’t bother to touch it.

And,

b). is a great good spontaneous alibi.

(I’m not bougie but the guy had a point; sometimes those off–brand cereals just don’t cut it (except for Joe’s O’s, which are pretty darn good).

Three kids down, yet no answers. It had been over an hour and Mom had made no progress.

It was time to move on to the last potential offender, my 12y.o. sister.

The issue with this task was that my 12y.o sister (#4) was, and still is, one of the most stubborn people I’ve every met, so, even if she’d done it, that child would rather take it to the grave than admit it.

The 12y.o. actually had a very solid alibi and there was no inclination that she was responsible for the mystery dish. She claimed that she had spent that entire morning in her room, which, was something she did often so there was no suspicion about that.

We were down four for four. Over an hour of questioning, examining, tears,and pleading, all down the drain. I got off that couch with no more answers than I had before I sat on it.

I’d never know who the Captain Crunch bandit was. I guess some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved, UNTIL:

Months later, the 12y.o. finally confessed to the dirty deed in a birthday card for me, as my “gift”- the truth, at last. And I chased her around the house…little jerk).”