Bullying in our nation’s schools is an all-too-common occurrence, and this story proves just how cruel kids can be to one another: Bullies at this kid’s school call him “Cap’n Crunch Junior” just because his dad is a cereal pirate who sails through the streets on a ship full of crunch berries.
This is absolutely heartbreaking. No child should have to endure this kind of harassment.
Twelve-year-old Gordon Cereal should be spending seventh grade learning and making new friends, but instead he’s spending it cowering in fear from vicious bullies who are quick to make broad stereotypes about all magical cereal pirates and assume that just because you sail around in an enchanted cartoon boat powered by the deliciousness of cereal, that somehow makes you identical to Cap’n Crunch. Even though Gordon’s dad is not Cap’n Crunch, but a completely different cereal pirate named Admiral Delicious Cereal, that doesn’t stop mean-spirited kids in his class from jeering at him and calling him by the hurtful nickname Cap’n Crunch Junior.
“On the first day of school, the biggest kid in class pushed me against a locker and said, ‘Why don’t you get your dad to come crunchatize me, Cap’n Crunch Junior?’” Gordon recalled, fighting back tears as he recounted the endless bullying he’s had to put up with just because his dad and Cap’n Crunch are both graduates of the Quaker Oats Naval Academy and both like to sail their ships through walls and turn children into cereal using breakfast magic. “I kept trying to explain that my dad isn’t Cap’n Crunch—he’s a completely different cereal pirate! But the bullies don’t care. They just think every person who gets an elephant in a chef’s hat to serve Peanut Butter Crunch to animated children is exactly the same.”
Absolutely shameful. This kind of ignorance and hate has no place in our schools!
One of the most devastating things about the bullying that Gordon has faced is that Gordon’s dad is a completely different type of cereal pirate from Cap’n Crunch. Anyone looking at Cap’n Crunch and Admiral Delicious Cereal side by side would immediately spot tons of essential distinctions. For starters, Cap’n Crunch is 3 feet 4 inches tall, and Gordon’s dad is 3 feet 2 inches tall. Cap’n Crunch has eyebrows that hover above his head, and Gordon’s dad has no eyebrows at all. Yes, there are superficial similarities, such as the fact that both Cap’n Crunch and Gordon’s dad sail through the streets on a river of crunch berries, and both wear identical blue uniforms with hats emblazoned with a big yellow ‘C’ on them, and both go around crunchatizing anyone who asks, but these surface-level features are no excuse to start calling Gordon Cap’n Crunch Junior. The kids in Gordon’s class need a major attitude adjustment.
This is honestly just so depressing. No child should have to put up with taunting and name-calling, especially the children of the cereal pirates who work so hard to crunchatize ordinary Americans and bring us delicious new flavors of crunch berries. Our advice to Gordon is to just stay strong and know that one day he’ll find a group of children whose parents are also cereal pirates and will accept him for exactly who he is!
