I stumbled into the kitchen this morning and grabbed a brand new box of Honey Nut Cheerios out of the cabinet. I noticed some Shrek artwork on the box, and words that said something free was inside, but didn’t take time to read them. I opened the box up, and lying on top of the sealed wax bag of cereal was a small package. I pulled it out, unwrapped it, and found a digital watch with the Three Little Pigs from Shrek as the artwork. Not only do kids get kick ass toys in cereal now (I realize the watch may work about as long as a “Rolex” purchased in Hong Kong, but still, it’s a digital watch!), but they also don’t have to go elbow deep into the box, or spend the morning pouring an entire box into a huge salad bowl and then carefully returning it to get their gear. It’s resting softly on top, like a wedding ring on a pillow. I remember at least two “incidents”, generally with Fruity or Cocoa Pebbles, that ended with roughly a third of the total volume of cereal scattered on the floor from my efforts to get some plastic Fred Flintstone bicycle reflector out of the bottom of the box. Kids these days…