Cereal Porn

The boyfriend is away in Colorado, visiting babies and watching sports. Meanwhile, I wake up to Joe powerwashing the siding on the apt and speaking loudly into his cell phone. I lie in bed and think about what I want for breakfast, recall an article I read entitled “Why Your Skin L-O-V-E-S Oatmeal” and decide to treat my skin. I get up once, can’t do it. I get up again, make it to my closet then fall back down, as if some inexorable jedi force sucked me into the wormhole of my bed. I put on a shoe, look in the mirror and stare at my pillow. This is nonsense. The TV will wake me up. Indeed. I switch on that light box and my Saturday brain clicks on like an IM bubble.

So after a halfhearted attempt to find the colonial guy with the white wig, I instead find myself walking up and down the only aisle at the local, newly minted bodega, being swayed and bemused by glossy cereal boxes with blown up pictures of crispy delicious flakes. Since when has food pictures become porn? Perhaps, always, natch. I wind up with Autumn Wheat which is like Shredded Wheat but this cereal has “biscuits of freshly cut golden wheat stacked in beautiful bundles with little hidden crystals of organic evaporated cane juice." Aw! Little hidden crystals of organic cane juice? I LOVE little hidden crystals, ESPECIALLY if they are organic and stacked in beautiful bundles and especially if they are made by my friends at Kashi. I grab a box with great vivre.

I have a little chit chat with Roberto, the counter guy, Hey, I say, do you guys carry oatmeal?

Yeah, he says, it’s in that aisle (points to the one aisle ) on the bottom shelf.

I make a sucking noise of understanding, Ohhh, I say, the bottom shelf! My peripheral only extends halfway up the 3rd shelf to the 6th or 7th shelf, tops. I have LCAS. (limited consumer attention span)

I walk back to my apt. I open up my box, pour my 1% milk and look at my coffee cup sleeve. It reads, “ YOUR HAIR LOOKS REALLY, REALLY GOOD TODAY. LIKE. REALLY GOOD.” In Helvetica. I just watched a documentary in Helvetica and it was eye-opening. All about width and negative space and proportion. Fascinating stuff, really good.

REALLY, REALLY GOOD.

I try to read the bottom of the sleeve to see what it’s really trying to sell me. It reads: NOTHING STARTS YOUR DAY LIKE COFFEE AND A LITTLE POSITIVE REINFORCEMNET.(10 font) then in red, bold: COMPLIMENTS OF THE ACADIA CROSSOVER, FROM GMC. Then I turn the cup over and there is the car, like a steel linebacker looking back at me, its wheels turned halfway, to show its profile.

I chew my cereal, unmoved. It does conjure up tender feelings for GMC however, and perhaps whatever else they sell, I might buy. Obviously I am not their target market.

Ok, enough rambling. Time to enjoy my Saturday.