Serial Kill-Joy

I eat cold cereal in the mornings during the work week. I realize, especially during the winter months, there's a lot of positives to be said about oatmeal, grits, Wheatena or Maypo, but I've never been able to eat any of them.

I can prepare hot cereals just fine and without hesitation. I focus on the tasks at hand--heat the water, pour it into the container and stir it around with the spoon until it has the consistency of wallpaper paste. So far, so good. Pause, dip the spoon into the container, remove and then slowly direct it towards my mouth. NO SALE.

I cannot be tricked into eating it, no matter how good it smells, no matter how much I 'know' after 30 days it'll lower my cholesterol, no matter how it'll warm me up from the inside and get my day off to a brighter and faster start. Nope. Here comes the airplane and you're the hanger......oh, it's yummy and delicious Maypo.... NOPE. Not happening. Not in this life and not in the next life.

As a matter of fact, I eat cold cereal without milk and sugar, without bananas or strawberries or anything else. Just naked, the way it comes out of the box--the way General Mills and Kellogg's (Kay e double L oh double good) made it.

I had a boss years ago tell me when breakfast cereals were introduced into post-war (West) Germany, Germans had NO idea how to eat them and poured orange juice onto the cereal, instead of milk and sugar. I guess these days it'd be 2% and Splenda.

My favorite cereal is and has always been Cheerios-just the way they are-NOT covered with yogurt or flavored with apple whatevers, just plain tannish (sort of) Cheerios, looking like bagel seeds. I never allowed myself as a kid to get enticed by the promise of a prize inside. I was in training even then for adulthood when all the cereals you eat have NO prizes. And if they did, instead of decoder rings and sea monkeys they'd offer rebates on medical tests and little boxes.
-bill kenny