Cereal Killer

I was never one for labeling people. My friends enjoyed it though. We would get together on Friday nights, and using our Dymo embossing label makers, we would hit the stores and pick out victims at random. "Let's put 'DUMB' on him" a friend would giggle. Back then it would take a little bit to make out the label. You had to align the wheel, press the trigger, and then align the wheel for the next letter. But we enjoyed our time together. I remember last year, during our 45th high school reunion, pulling out the new digital label maker and Tommy Glassmen giggling that same giggle and typing out whatever we told him. I never personally stuck the sticker on people because it always seemed people were more than that but I never wanted to say anything - then or now. It was a time for bonding between friends. And now it was a drive down memory lane. But no matter how much I opposed the actual labels I always understood that people had to have their labels. Some wanted and needed those titles. My uncle, the one who graduated from medical school and interned at Chicago Memorial Center, felt the need for people to call him Doctor. And my cousin Vinny who transports commuters using a large vehicle with advertising on the side. He always felt the need to be called a bus driver. My mother, who flies a transport vehicle with passengers in it always wanted us to call her a pilot. She was always so proud of her label until the FAA told her she couldn't fly anymore. Even though she had the training and was paid well, Mother never quite got over her fear of heights. We would argue about her drinking and she would just yell back, "You want those brand name shoes don't you?" Mother may have been an alcoholic but the label we would never be able to attach to her was "quitter". She never gave up trying to get her license to fly back nor could she give up the bottle. The idea for labels began many years ago outside a small village in France. Viggo was a small lad of seven who would take the coins his mother would give him and make the journey into town. Once there he would frantically search for the supplies he was sent in for. It was on one of his daily trips that a large man who never wore a shirt approached him. "What be you look for?" the stranger asked. Viggo, with the innocence of a child, looked up at the man and yelled, "Who the x$#& do you think you are?" The stranger was so stunned by the bluntness of the boy that all he could think of to say was "I am he who smiths black." The villagers, who were always a little put off by the man without a shirt began to giggle that day and point at the man and yell "Smiths Black". It became the biggest joke in the village. "Smiths Black this, and Smiths Black that" was in constant conversation. The boy, Viggo, went home that day with out the supplies his family desperately needed. His mother, in need of her chewing tobacco, was upset with him. "Why have you not brought back the supplies we so desperately need my young Viggo?" The boy, who had always been afraid of his mother, cried out in defiance "Smiths Black!! Smiths!!! Black!!" His mother, who had little patience without her tobacco, left the house that day in search of the answers to her questions. As she approached the village she came across a beggar sitting in front of the post office. "Excuse me, kind sir, can you direct me to a man they call Smiths Black?" The beggar looked her square in the eye and said, "What?" The woman was really feeling the jitters now and in her need of a tobacco fix mixed the two words. "Black Smiths??" The old beggar, who was extremely hard of hearing, looked her in the eye and yelled back, "What??!!" The mother, who had never gone this long without a chew began yelling "Black! Smith! - Black! Smith! - Black! Smith!!" By then half the village had come out their doors to hear the exchange. It was this day that the burly stranger who used to torment all the visitors to the little village became known as the Black Smith. It just happened that he forged hot metals into working items such as horse shoes and such. The boy, still angry at his mother and Smiths Black (now known as Black Smith) decided to poison his mother by adding lye to her box of Mini Wheats. When the news went out that the young boy had killed his mother by poisoning her breakfast meal he received his own label. Thus, Viggo, the son of Tonya, became known as the first Cereal Killer. Labels will always be with us but sometimes the tale of how we get them is more important than the label themselves. My name is Rueuhy and I approve this blog.