Jon wasn’t sure what if anything happened. But maybe whatever was different with the world couldn’t be seen from the inside of his room, or house, so he went outside. Well something off was going on, because a bunch of kids were beating up some other kid on his lawn! Just kicking him as he was face down in the grass. Meanwhile two other kids that seemed to be with them were eating cereal from bowls. What was up with that?
“Hey you fuckers get out of here!” Jon said, slapping one of the vile little kids in the face. He looked to be 8 or 10 years old. No match for Jon. He started crying and the whole gang scattered, including the two eating cereal.
“You ok kid?” Jon said to the kid dressed in bright green clothes. Who got up, and proved to not be a kid at all. He appeared to be an adult dwarf. Or midget? Dressed like a leprechaun? No, it couldn’t be, could it?
“Much obliged good sir! Those rotten kids were up to it again, stealing me Lucky Charms!”
“Oh my god,” Jon said.
“Here, have a bowl on me!” the leprechaun said. And then a bowl full of cereal with milk just appeared out of nowhere in his hands, and he handed it to Jon.
Jon took it and started eating. He didn’t want to offend the leprechaun and it honestly had been a long time since he had last had some. When he was 7 years old, he had once consumed a whole box worth, and it had turned his crap bright green. Though not as bright a green as that time he ate too much black licorice.
“So, you’re the real Lucky Charms leprechaun huh?” Jon said conversationally.
“One of them. Here’s me business card,” he said, holding a card out to Jon. It said “Lucky #11337. General Mills associate”
“Huh,” Jon said. “By any chance do you know the trix rabbit? Or Tony the tiger?”
“Oh yes, the Trix rabbits are me acquaintances, and one of them I am proud to say is me wife.”
Jon started coughing, and choking on cereal at that.
“The Tonys are our fierce competitors though, they work for our mortal enemy, Kellogg. You ok there?”
“Cough, fine, cough…” Jon sputtered.
“So… any other… mascots? out there?” Jon said, eyeing what appeared to be a zombie stumbling down the sidewalk. “Is he one of them? Hey buddy, you ok there?”
“Welcome to Costco, I love you…” groaned the zombie.
“Don’t mind him,” Lucky said, “he’s just a Costco zombie. Not a very bright lot.”
“Did Costco have a corporate mascot? A zombie?” Jon asked.
“Of course. All major corporations have mascots,” Lucky said matter of factly. “The bigger the company, the more mascots they have. Typically about 1 mascot per million dollars in the company’s book value.”
It seemed that companies that didn’t have mascots before, did now, and what’s more, they were walking around in tangible form, millions of them probably.
“What happens if a company goes bankrupt?”
“Oh, that’s very bad for us. Poof. Gone. That’s why we’re all doing our part, promoting our companies, we don’t want to end up like the Pluggys, that is, the Circuit City USB plugs, or the Promethiuses, the Sears dragons. But we also can die the normal way, so I also owe you me life, so if there’s something you need, I’ll see if I can help with me rainbow marshmallow magic!”
“Oh, what can you do with rainbow marshmallow magic?”
“Just make bowls of cereal appear,” Lucky said, looking down.
Just then a strange looking character appeared around the bend, with a huge, hideous smile, with a sinister, smug dimple just on one side of his mouth.
“Oh no, it’s an Amazon smile man, we’ve got to get out of here!” Lucky said, trying to lead Jon away.
Jon didn’t know why he would need to do that at first. Until the smile man was running their way, yelling “Buy buy buy buy!” Then he pulled out a sword and started yelling “10% off! 10% off!” as he ran closer, swinging his sword around.
“How the hell, is he, helping Amazon, stay in business?!” Jon panted.
“When’s the last time, you ever heard about, Amazon giving a crap, what you think of them,” Lucky said back between breaths. “You’ll still, buy from them, no matter what.”
Jon and Lucky ran as fast as they could, Lucky could run surprisingly fast. Finally they shook the smile man off. But were they safe now?
