cereal | Strictly Autobiographical

Sometimes I think I want to invent my own breakfast cereal, like it doesn’t matter what it’s called, or even what it tastes like. The only thing that I have planned out is that the mascot is going to be this giant humanoid tiger, and he’s going to go, “Theyyyyyy’re terrific!” just exactly the same way that Tony the Tiger does his slogan.

And then I’m going to sit there by the phone and wait for Kellogg to give me a call. “Hello, we’re calling about Tom the Tiger,” because that’s what I’m going to name my Tiger mascot, Tom, and he’s going to have the same broad shoulders, the same red neckerchief, Tom’s obviously labeled “Tom” instead of “Tony,” the same shit-eating grin and index finger pointed high in the sky, “We’re issuing a cease-and-desist.”

And I’ll be like, fuck that man, I’m no lawyer, you can’t kill Tom the Tiger just because you don’t like what he has to say. He’s not saying “They’re great!” he’s saying, terrific, “And besides,” I’ll tell them, “This is actually Tony the Tiger’s older brother, Tom,” and they’ll be like, “All right, you want to do this the hard way? Let’s do this the hard way.” And I’ll be like, “Fine, if you guys want to do it the hard way, let’s go.”

That might unnerve them a little, because here’s the thing, you get some company pissed off about a cartoon tiger, fine, they send you a letter, it’s some lawyer, sure, terrific, let me ask you, what are you going to do, you’re going to come over my cereal factory and physically stop me from making Tom the Tiger boxes? No, you’re going to have to start a whole legal proceeding, and I’ll make sure that takes time.

And I never understood the legalities, say some judge tells you to knock it off. Say you don’t want to, what, do the cops eventually get involved? Do they storm the cereal factory, start ripping up boxes? Or would they just like block out the part of the box with the mascot? I’m just saying, I think this whole system is a huge power trip, scare tactics, intimidation, big cereal.

And besides, Tom the Tiger really is Tony the Tiger’s older brother. Who do you think taught Tony how to stand upright like a human being, how to make a red embroidered neckerchief with “Tony” on the bottom? Because it is embroidered, even though by the illustration it only looks like it’s maybe screen-printed. And he talks. Tigers don’t talk. They certainly don’t teach themselves how to talk.

Who taught Tony? Tom. But who taught Tom? Ah, that’s the question. Tom’s actually pretty hush-hush about the whole “Who taught you how to walk and talk like a human” business, and don’t even bother asking him as to how he got his start in the whole cereal business.

And so, your honor, I’d like to continue to point out that, where exactly in the Constitution does it grant Kellogg the right to deny me the use of my imagination to expand upon the Tony the Tiger biography? What has Kellogg done new with character in, what, twenty, thirty years? He’s been around forever. I think the guy that does his voice died like ten years ago. That’s why I’m careful not to too strongly link Tom with any sort of specific voice or inflection or intonation.

Your honor, another thing, how long – no I object! – how long exactly must these cartoon cereal character characters remain slaves of their prepackaged dry-goods? Why just Frosted Flakes? Maybe Tony wants to move on. Maybe Tom’s here to rescue him. Kids love Tony, and Tony loves kids. But maybe Tony doesn’t want to peddle around sugar-coated cereals anymore. What about diabetes? Did you know that tigers can get diabetes also?

Show me the statistics of tiger diabetes, Kellogg. Well, you’re the cartoon tiger experts, aren’t you? No, you’re not. I am. Here are the statistics. You see what they say? That one hundred percent of cartoon tigers suffer from type one adult onset diabetes. And that’s just tigers. You should see the kinds of fucked up shit Chester Cheeto has to deal with.

I will not be held in contempt. Tom has a right to exist! Frosted Flakes is trying to take away our freedom! Your honor, I – get your hands off of me! Theyyyy’re terrific! Terrific! Theyyyyy’re grrrrreat!

This morning I got up and I went down to the kitchen. Normally I have a pretty set morning routine. Unless I’m running late for whatever reason, like unless I overslept or spent too much time laying awake in bed but not moving, just kind of staring at the ceiling, thinking about funny scenes from random episodes of Seinfeld or The Simpsons, I’ll go downstairs, I’ll make a pot of coffee.

While the coffee brews, I always take my dog Steve for a walk. And that’s exactly what I did this morning, just like every other regular morning. And I have everything timed just so, or, I should say that it’s not me actively doing the timing, but things just happened to be timed in such a way that by the time I come back in the house with Steve, I can hear the coffee machine, its three beeps: “beep, beep, beep” telling me that the coffee’s done.

And so it’s coffee, it’s breakfast. Ninety percent of the time I’ll have a bowl of cereal. I love cereal. But I also love making use of all of my groceries. And so today as I reached to grab that box of cereal, I happened to look down at the counter, at this plastic bag with two sandwich rolls inside. I had bought them three days ago, thinking I’d make, you guessed it: a sandwich. But I don’t know what happened, I got distracted, I forgot about the bread, maybe I ate some leftovers.

Whatever may have or may not have been the case, I was looking at these rolls. They were from the deli section, so it’s not the type of bread that I can just keep in the kitchen for a week, a week and a half, and expect to stay fresh enough for consumption on its own. No, these fresh bakery style rolls need to be taken care of, ideally, within one day, two days tops. Like I already said, today was day three.

I thought, just throw them out. They cost less than a dollar. And I was about to. I had my foot on the garbage can, the pedal, it’s one of those garbage cans with a pedal that you step on to pop the lid open, and I was just about to chuck the bag inside. Still, I felt an apprehension, I didn’t want to waste the food. I was getting mentally stuck here, blocked, all while my hunger steadily mounted.

Out of nowhere, a flash of insight, an idea: what about French toast? I remembered reading somewhere, a cookbook, a newspaper article, something about how French toast was originally developed as means of breathing fresh life into stale bread. Then my brain started really making some connections, I thought about bread pudding, I pictured croutons, homemade breadcrumbs. Whereas I was just minutes ago ready to toss these two rolls away, now I had the opposite problem, I couldn’t decide what to do with them, it was like I was overwhelmed with too many options.

But again, I was hungry. Bread pudding, one, it would’ve taken too long, and two, that’s not really a breakfast, it’s a dessert. That’s why I’m not a huge donut for breakfast fan. I love donuts, but come on, it’s just an excuse to eat cake right away. Croutons or breadcrumbs? Not enough to constitute an entire meal. French toast it was.

It was good. It was OK. Like a dummy I forgot to grease the pan, so you can just imagine the sticking-to-the-pan problems I had to deal with. Who forgets to grease the pan? I just chalked it up to hunger, the same hunger that probably made me reach not for my good silicone spatula, but the cheap plastic one, and so when I tried to scrape the bits from the pan, the black plastic started to melt. I tossed that cheap-o spatula away without any hesitation.

But yeah, it was tasty. I used milk, eggs, vanilla extract. Nutmeg would have been nice, but unfortunately I guess I don’t keep it regularly stocked. It’s more of like a fall/wintertime spice if you ask me, although if it tastes good I don’t see why anything should be limited to a particular time or season. But yeah, it was fine, tasty, a nice breakfast.

Happy April Regulars Day everybody!