by: -RoG-

So I went back to the East Coast for my brother's wedding last week, and while I was there, I visited some old friends named Andrew and Malissa. One night, I was hanging out at their home when we heard some commotion in the dining room. We ran into the dining room, and upon our arrival, we felt as though something had suddenly punched us square in our throats, rendering all three of us absolutely speechless:

A black cat we had never seen before was standing on the dining room table next to a box of Rice Krispies cereal, and its haunting, yellow-eyed stare pierced through the very core of our souls. Frozen in terror, we dared not move an inch out of fear of what it might do. And that's when it spoke the words that we shall never forget:

"Roger, Andrew, and Malissa. You three... you three shall take this box of Rice Krispies and follow the recipe instructions on the back to make Fright Krispies Treats ghosts. And since you do not have a decent camera on hand, you will have to make due with a crappy camera phone to document your ghoulish culinary creation. Do it well, and your taste buds shall be haunted with Halloween deliciousness. Do it poorly, and I'll scratch out your eyeballs and wear them as slippers. Look, I'm a talking black cat, so you have to admit there's a pretty good chance I'm not fucking around here, okay? Just take my word that I'm capable of pulling off such things.

Oh and by the way, you didn't have a litter box, so I made a poop under this table. Sorry."

And as soon as it appeared, the black cat vanished into thin air, leaving only the box of Rice Krispies behind. (and poop)

The three of us stood there in absolute bewilderment as to why that freakish feline would make such an odd request, but we decided it was best not to ponder these things considering our eyeballs were on the line. So armed with a camera phone and all the courage we could muster, we began the process of making Rice Krispies Treats ghosts and photographing our progress along the way:

[click to enlarge]

The recipe on the back of the box was for "Fright Krispies Treats", which appeared to be just like regular Rice Krispies Treats, only shaped into ghosts. It sounded easy enough and we just happened to have a bag of marshmallows along with all the other ingredients. Well, except for the flaked coconut shavings. But honestly, who wants coconut anywhere near their treats? It's only a garnish in this case anyway, so no big deal.

After melting some butter and marshmallows in a big pot, we stirred in a bunch of Rice Krispies and that's when we realized there was an unforeseen step in creating the Fright Krispies ghosts...

"Divide warm cereal mixture into portions. Using buttered hands, shape each portion into ghost shape."

Look, I'm far from a master chef, so I have no idea if the buttering of one's hands is commonplace in the grand arena of cooking. Most of my experience making meals involves pouring cereal into a bowl, so discovering that I would have to grease my hands with butter came as quite a surprise. But again, our eyeballs were at stake here so...

...my hands were buttered.

MY HANDS WERE BUTTERED!!!

As strange as it felt to have my hands covered in butter, I had to mold the portions of the mixture into ghost-like shapes. Some ended up looking kinda like ghosts, while others looked like crumbling Rice Krispie recreations of Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs. Either way, all of them looked pretty damn tasty, but they weren't ready to be consumed just yet.

The recipe also called for adding M&M's candies to be used for the creation of the eyes and mouths of each ghost. We had some of the new Halloween candy corn flavored M&M's and a tube of black icing, so we went to work on our treats. Out of the nine ghost treats we made, there were three that I really liked in particular:

Sure, he's simple, but the shape of this treat combined with the expression reminded me of Bert from Sesame Street, so he was dubbed the honorable name of "Cyclops Bert". In retrospect, I should've added in a pupil, but perhaps it's his milky white view of the world that has made him so disgruntled to begin with. Well, either that or the fact that he knew he was going to be devoured in the immediate future. Sorry Bert.

Next up, was the ocular mutation. I don't think we ever gave it a proper name, but Malissa made this one and I loved how she covered it with eyeballs in random spots. I think I'll call it Blinky, since it makes me think of the mutant fish of the same name from The Simpsons. It doesn't even remotely resemble a ghost, but I dare say that the Kellogg's company isn't the #1 resource on the afterlife anyway, so who cares. Blinky the ghost shall live on in our hearts and stomachs forever.

Lastly, here's Andrew's fantastically violent creation. What we have here is a physical confirmation that ghosts do in fact bleed when you stab them in the head with a knife. Forget the proton packs, all you need is a handy kitchen knife if you have a poltergeist inyour house. While nobody wanted to try eating this one, since we didn't have red cake icing and instead had to use ketchup to pull off the look, we all agreed it was worth sacrificing one treat for an visual like this. It was stabbed so hard that even one of its eyes fell off. That's just not something that happens every day.

And here we have the full group of nine Fright Krispies Treats, including some very basic ghosts, to ones with candy corn mohawks and stylish black icing hairdos. I have no idea why that black cat forced us make these ghosts, but it must have been satisfied with the results, because we all still have our eyeballs intact. Honestly, I'm starting to think it was just testing to see if any of us would actually rub butter all over our hands. A well played trick-and-treat if I've ever seen one.

If you want to take a crack at making your own ghosts, here's the Fright Krispies recipe. Please post photos them if you do or a black cat may pay you a visit too.

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