Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Breakfast Epiphany

I was watching the news and the animatronic anchor lady told me about how parents across the country are furious at General Mills for putting their latest flavor of Cheerios® in a box that is similar to plain flavored Cheerios®. The problem? The new flavor is peanut butter, and some children are allergic to peanuts, and some parents might mistakenly purchase the peanut butter flavor when they intended to purchase the plain flavor, and then those parents might mistakenly serve the potentially lethal peanut butter flavor to their progeny, and said progeny might perish.

My first thought was, "seriously? That many children have peanut allergies? Humans don't stand much of a chance on this planet if peanuts can wipe out an entire generation of our species. Maybe the octopi will do a better job than we have."

My second thought was, "wait a minute...those boxes look nothing alike. If the parents are so stupid they can't tell the difference they shouldn't reproduce. Perhaps adding a little selective evolutionary pressure to their family trees might be a good thing."

Really. The boxes are about as similar as a stoat and a penguin. Take a look...


 
But none of that matters because then the best thought I've had in...I dunno...ever trundled through my brain.

"I must go and buy a box of peanut butter Cheerios® and a box of chocolate Cheerios® 

AND MIX THEM!!!"

So I did.

I have created a breakfast cereal blend that possesses the flavor combination of a Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup® without sugar-coma inducing sweetness or roof-of-the-mouth-abrading texture of Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup® brand cereal.

And I am sad.

Do you know why?

Because I just know that General Mills is going to cave to parental pressure and pull peanut butter flavored Cheerios® from the supermarket shelves despite my e-mail urging their continued production. I will perhaps be able to source peanut butter flavored Cheerios® on the black market for a few months before the supply is completely consumed, and then I will be forever haunted by the memory of those delicately chocolate-and-peanut-butter-kissed toasted Os that once graced my cereal bowl.

1 comment:

Charley Robson said...

I have a nut allergy, and I think those parents are perhaps the dimmest things on the planet. CAN'T THEY READ!?

Hope for you though - they might just change the packaging on the Peanut Butter ones, but continue selling them! There is hope yet, my friend, do not despair! I can always ship your black market supply from the UK, if they ever get to us ;)