Being Cap’n Crunch
As we’ve seen in the last two readings, it’s important to Ask Active Questions and Choose Calm Tenacity. Today, I’ll conclude with a lesson learned from the beloved breakfast cereal sage known as Cap’n Crunch.
During my college years, I was in a program that required students to secure a summer internship with a company related to their business major. I was in marketing, so I chose an internship with the Quaker Oats Company. Of all their food products, the one I remember most is Cap’n Crunch. Yes, the cereal is one big sugar-bomb, but the Cap’n himself? He’s pretty awesome in the ranks of cereal characters. Way cooler than those Rice Krispie elves.
I speak from experience. Because one of my internship responsibilities was being Cap’n Crunch for in-store appearances. The costume was quite impressive. Think Disney-quality with a cartoony sailor vibe. They shipped the costume in a metal box across the country for local grocery events because, hey, when the Cap’n shows up, cereal boxes fly off the shelves.
There were just two problems with the costume.
First, it was made for a small cartoon character…and I’m 6’4”. So the sleeves stopped at my forearms and the sailor pants ended at my calves.
Alas, it gets worse. Way worse. Because anyone sporting that heavy costume gets really hot inside it. I realized the consequences of that after I was in the suit and engaging with customers. The last wearer hadn’t just gotten overheated in it, they had become nauseous and thrown up inside the Cap’n head. The smell was bad. The crunchy chunks still inside the head…unforgettable. I learned the life of a breakfast cereal mascot isn’t all fame and glory.
But that’s not the main lesson I learned from that cartoon cereal icon who sailed the seas in search of the perfect crunchberry. No, he had a far greater truth to teach me…one about identity.
I noticed when I wore the costume, I was wildly popular. But as a grocery store rep, I was mostly invisible. I began to wonder. Where else in life did I feel unseen or unknown? In what settings did I feel I wasn’t enough? When was I compensating or cloaking my true self to gain the approval of others?
As Frederick Buechner says: "The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather."
This isn’t just a question for all the breakfast cereal mascots out there. Where is your original, shimmering self buried or hidden? Imagine what it would feel like to finally step out of that costume and fully become the person God created you to be.
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