Days of Cold Cereal

Here's something I've gotten better at over the years: pouring milk into a bowl of cold cereal. And it's odd, because in the old days I ate cereal all the time, and my skills never improved a jot! But now that I hardly ever have cold cereal, now that it's a rare treat, I have been able to step back from it a bit, recognize the flaws in my technique, and correct them.

Cold cereal has always been a treat for me, rare or not. Man, I remember when I was a kid, what was better than a bowl of cold cereal? THREE BOWLS OF COLD CEREAL! I ate the stuff up.

Literally.

I don't know if it's just me, or just something about being a kid, but if it's the latter I've put the lie to it because I still love the stuff, I just never go down that aisle so there's never any in the house, the consequence of which is, no cold cereal for me. But when I was a kid, we had boxes and boxes! Usually a good 3-5 to choose from at any given time, and the choices were ever-changing. Every day my mom would come home with three gallons of milk (handing one straight to my big brother for him to drink the whole thing down on the spot). And as boxes of cereal were depleted, the supply was replenished with a constant cycle of cereal varieties. A veritable buffet of the fruits of the cornucopia of grain goodness!

The world 'cereal' derives from Ceres, a greco-roman goddess-type figure who if I remember my mythology right, was known for being raped by the god of dead people and, one assumes, also for eating a lot of cereal. Mythology is so weird!

Anyway, we had Corn Flakes, Grape Nuts, all manner of Chex, Life, Buck-Wheats (oh, my favorite - wherefore art thou, Buck-Wheats?), Shredded Wheat, Mini-Wheats, Wheaties, Branny-O's, Cheerios, Raisin Bran, and Cracklin' Oat Fucks. I'm barely scratching the surface - you name it, we had it coming through the pipeline in spades. The only exception: no cereal was allowed whose first listed ingredient was sugar. So for Cap'n Crunch, Boo-Berry, Lucky Charms or any of those, we pretty much had to hold out 'til when we were over at Grandpop and Grandmom's. But that was kind of cool, too! Because it became one more little touch that made those visits just that much more special.

We kids loved cereal. We went through so much sugar, I swear. I would fill my bowl heaped to a height and a half of corn-flakes balanced like a stack of Jenga practically, then pour the milk on down and through (flashing and splashing off at all angles from careening off the flakes!), bringing the milk level up almost to the brim of the bowl's edge (which would mean that when I finished the cereal, there would still be a half-bowl of milk and I'd be forced to say, "well, I guess I need to pour some more cereal in!), and then, it would be about four HEAPING tablespoons of sweet sugar.

I still love cereal, as I say, but I never put sugar on anything now. Must be some difference in a child's metabolism. Sugar, at that growing age, is just what the body needs - and that message is sent to the brain and received! And acted upon.

The word 'sugar' derives from Sugos, the ancient Mesopotamian god of youthful exuberance and hyperactivity.

Yes, we all loved cereal. I remember one time - now, don't let me give the wrong impression here, mom slaved daily and nightly putting squares on the table for a thundering herd of kids who just took it for granted that their nutrition was in good hands - and who were right in doing so! But every now and then, if she was just too pooped out or feeling under the weather to mount the nightly production of entrees and sides, it would be "cereal for dinner." This was very rare. And as I say, to the kids, it was kind of a fun treat! And we loved our cereal. So one early evening, as the rest of the kids were playing outside, mom asked me to let them know: cereal for dinner. And I ran out through the kitchen, through the rec room, through the utility room to burst out the back door and deliver the joyous news to the whole neighborhood for blocks around in a SHOUT: "HEY GUYS! It's CEREAL for dinner!!"

At that age, and at that point in time, and considering my firm belief in the goodness of cereal and my even-then obliviousness or disregard for the meek weak sauce of convention, it was simply impossible for my mom to get me to understand why she was a bit chagrined at the way I went about that. But being a good and dutiful son, I didn't need to understand or agree with the reasoning. I just filed it away as a note, and I was always more circumspect from then on in.