There comes a time in a boy’s life when he becomes a man. Many claim this event occurs when he goes through puberty, or when he moves away from home, or when he first experiences the warmth of a woman’s touch. You could have easily convinced me that one of these was indeed the answer, but after last night, I say, “not so.”

Doing the right thing is the gateway to manhood, and Shredded Wheat n’ Bran is the key.

Throw up your arms if you like, but hear me out.

There’s a laundry list of reasons why growing hair in funny places or bonin’ a lady is the obvious answer: you know you’re a real man ‘cause you’ve got huge biceps that kill things and drop panties. Duh. It’s a great argument. However, these are young men’s fancies that he wants to do. You want to run around and be a hero and get everything you want. I’d hazard a guess that that doesn’t sharpen you into a responsible adult. I’m saying that being a real man is doing what you have to, no matter how un-cool or ironically un-manly it appears on the surface.

An irritated gastro-intestinal tract, however, will grow you up fast.

Yesterday, several weeks into my 28th year, I finally admitted that I don’t have gravel for guts. For some forgotten reason, I decided in middle school that I would be “cool” or “manly” if I didn’t have stomach issues (“No, no let’s get another round of wings — yeah! make ‘em HOT.”).  I have clung to this ideology for roughly 14 years and for the majority of that time, I experienced no ill effects.

The year of my life, however, I have seen lesson after lesson, all pointing to the fact that putting my body through such torture proved nothing. These lessons include:

• Eating half a gallon of ice cream after midnight results in mind-bending diarrhea while stuck in traffic the next morning. (I no longer drive that vehicle)
• Consuming two large-sized #4 combos at the Forest Hill Chik-Fil-A results in vomiting in the bathroom at the Forest Hill Chik-Fil-A.
• Purchasing a buffalo chicken sub (with jalapenos and onions) from Sheetz because your coworker suggested you “not do that” and you want to “prove him wrong” results in a discreet attempt to throw your underwear away in the same Sheetz bag from an hour-and-a-half ago.

I finally felt the gravity of these lessons last week after a few consecutive evenings of delivery dinners. You don’t go to the bathroom every hour on the hour for three mornings straight without learning a thing or two. After nursing my wounds, I picked myself up by my bootstraps, called a spade a spade, and said out loud in my favorite stall at work, “oh dear god I cannot do this anymore.”

I was crushed. My reality crumbled. I had admitted I wasn’t a tough-stomach dude. And to add insult to hot-heiny injury, I instantly felt like an idiot for ever placing value in that.

Last night, when I was grocery shopping, I purchased cereal that assists in moving one’s bowels. The moment was strange. I felt powerful. I was taking ownership of my faults. I was handling my business.

And when Trey the Cashier asked “isn’t that stuff like cardboard?”, I puffed out my chest and replied like a man,

“Yeah, but it’s better than the bad poops.”

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Robot Handwriting posts new content every Monday.

Graham Neal is a guy becoming a man, one box of Shredded Wheat N Bran at time. He illustrated the Robot Handwriting logo and likes to draw. He also created a blog about the most intimate moments of my life with me knowing it.