Growing up, I was a relatively normal weird kid.

That may sound like an oxymoron, but it makes perfect sense in my head.

It wasn’t a Jeffrey Dahmer childhood where I killed cats and cut the eyes out of magazines. No, mine was a more reserved, simpler weird. I played out full basketball/football/baseball games by myself. I constantly ate my mom’s strawberry Chapstick. I crawled up the stairs on all fours like some sort of primitive beast.

A simple, normal weird kid.

Like any kid, I had a serious, almost heroin-like addiction to Lucky Charms. It was a cereal that was a perfect compromise between parent and child.

“Alright, you can have these sugar-packed marshmallows for breakfast, but you’re going to have to eat some Cheerios along with it.”

It seems like a reasonable resolution and many children who lack the kind of courage and intestinal fortitude as I had simply accept.

But like a miniature U.S. politician, I decided, “Hell no, I won’t compromise.”

Instead of allowing myself to bend to the will of my parents, I wanted it all – and by all, I mean just the marshmallows. I decided to do what every great figure in history did when their back is against the wall.

I waited until my parents weren’t watching.

While the conventional way of eating Lucky Charms is to pour some into a bowl, add some milk and scoop them up with a spoon, I revolutionized the experience by simply digging and pulling out a large handful. From there, I picked the marshmallows out like a vulture plucking away at the remaining meat on the bone.

When the marshmallows were gone, I tossed the Cheerios back into the box and started the whole process over until all that remained were the dry, disfigured Cheerios.

After this method was used for a few more boxes, my dad came across a Lucky Charms box in the garbage that was half-empty. He caught me and told me to stop just scooping out the marshmallows.

This is the part of the story where a lesser man accepts his fate and retires his ways for good.

But I was born for greatness – and it didn’t help that I now was a full-blown junkie who would stop at nothing to get his next marshmallow fix.

In the military, when the enemy has your primary route blocked, you do not give up. You adapt and overcome. So I used my superior critical thinking skills – I was a part of my public elementary school’s TAG program, which stands for TALENTED AND GIFTED!!!!  – to find a way around my father’s blockade.

Then it hit me.

If you were a hit man, you would be an idiot to simply toss the body in the Dumpster. No. No, you would hide the body.

Of course, I thought, it’s so simple. I would just need to hide the boxes then I could continue to eat Lucky Charms at will with no consequences.

I decided to hide the boxes up in the back corner of the attic. Yes, it was too perfect, I thought. Nobody would look there.

Somebody did look there.

My dad was cleaning out the attic one day and happened to stumble across four or five Lucky Charms boxes lined up perfectly. He almost certainly knew what was inside – lots of Cheerios and hardly any marshmallows. I had thought I came up with the breakfast cereal version of the perfect murder, but instead I had been found out once again.

My days of scooping out just the marshmallows were over because looking at myself, hiding box after box of Cheerio-filled Lucky Charms in the attic, made me come to the cold, hard reality.

I needed help.