Our memories are not always what they seem

At age 14, I immediately identified with Mikey. And I've never stopped thinking about him, into my adulthood and middle age.

Mikey was the kid, maybe 3 years old, who, in the now iconic '70s television commercial, was sitting at the kitchen table with two older boys.

The older boys were arguing about the bowl of Life cereal between them.

Why someone had poured one bowl of cereal, poured milk over it, and set it in front of three boys remains a mystery. If the boys were already suspicious of the cereal, it doesn't make sense they should have poured it. If the mother or father had poured the cereal, then why didn't she or he pour three bowls -- one for each kid? And are these boys brothers? Or neighbors? If neighbors, which of the kids actually lives in that house?

Back to the developing plotline, however:

Apparently some adult had said the cereal was "good for them." So, assuming that nothing could be both good for you and tasty, they took turns pushing the bowl toward each other, daring the other to try it. Back and forth the bowl went. Then the older boys hit upon an idea: "Let's get Mikey to try it! He'll eat anything!"

Little goober Mikey obediently shovels in a big bite, and then chows down in earnest. He likes it! Mikey likes it! And the older boys are incredulous. "Hey Mikey," they exclaim.

Somewhere deep in my unconscious, I wanted Mikey to stand up for himself. "Oh contraire," my Alternative Mikey would say. "You can pour this bowl of cereal in your ear! I won't, in fact, 'eat' anything, just because a couple of cowards ask me to." Then Alternative Mikey would turn the bowl of cereal upside down on his comrades' heads, to punctuate the point. Ah, justice! You go, Mikey!

Give it to Mikey. He'll eat anything. Something about that became a metaphor binding itself to my soul. Mikey's life resonated with something familiar to me. Specifically, there have been times throughout my life wherein it seemed people were making similar assumptions about me: "Steven will eat anything."

And, generally speaking, they were right. If it would keep the pretense of peace and affection, I ate my anger. My indignation. I ate injustice. I ate humiliation. Pride. In some cases, self-respect. Mikey was such a formative metaphor for me, I found myself occasionally using the TV commercial as an illustration in therapy for patients with similar experience. Mikey was my poster child.

Until today. Until, on a whim, I searched and found the commercial on YouTube. And here's how the dialogue goes:

Boy 1: What's this stuff?

Boy 2: Some cereal. It's supposed to be good for you

Boy 1: Did you try it?

Boy 2: I'm not gonna try it. You try it.

Boy 1: I'm not gonna try it.

Boy 2: Let's get Mikey to try it.

Boy 1: Yeah!

Boy 2: He won't eat it. He hates everything.

Huh? Unbelievable. All these years I've been remembering the dialogue incorrectly. Conveniently incorrectly, I might add, because it fit my view of self and the world. I "heard" something no one said. Mind you, I didn't misunderstand; I flat concocted something else entirely. In graduate school, we used to call this clinical phenomenon "MSU." As in the sentence, "My patient is MSU." Making stuff up. Except, as I recall, we didn't use the word "stuff."

The advertisement doesn't say, "He'll eat anything." It says, "He hates everything." And, in that, I can't identify with Mikey at all. Because I don't hate everything. To the contrary, I'll try just about anything -- a new food, a new idea, and, if halfway reasonable, I'll mull just about any criticism. It most cases, I err on the side of giving folks' behavior and opinions of me too much credence. Too much license. And for too long.

In a very real way, I never saw the commercial. I only saw my own life as I projected into the advertisement. Makes you wonder how often your historical resentments and unmet needs clutter up or even poison your contemporary relationships, joys and activities.

Human memory is a disconcerting thing, to say the least.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.