The Most Important Meal

I'm off from work for another week, so I sleep in until close to seven in the morning (which in light of my usual rise and shine routine really is late) and just have my breakfast later in our kitchen instead of at my work desk.

I eat cold cereal in the mornings during the work week. I realize, especially during the colder 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 in the spoon and slowly direct it towards my mouth. NOPE.

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, enable me to leap tall buildings in a single bound, 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, to the bemusement of all members of my family, 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 in Germany 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 is and has always been Cheerios-just the way they are-NOT covered with yogurt or flavored with apple whatevers, just plain brown Cheerios, looking like doughnut seeds. I never allowed myself as a kid to get seduced by the prize inside. 

That's one of the reasons I hated growing up: adults eat cereals with NO prizes! What kind of a deal is that? With all due respect to MJ and his marketing magic, what kind of a prize would you expect to find in a Wheaties box, anyway? Sweatsocks? 'Collect the whole pair! One each inside of specially marked boxes!'  Talk about a dilemma, Punky's or otherwise.
-bill kenny