Cold Cereal Infestation

Growing up in Iowa, I was raised by parents that were conservative and practical. Mom never purchased cold cereal. It was expensive and didn't stick to our ribs. Instead, breakfast carbohydrates consisted of oatmeal, homemade granola, cracked wheat, cooked rice or toast (made with thick slices of homemade wheat bread, of course).

My best friend Kerry's house, however, was a modern home with sliced white bread and, naturally, cold cereal. Kerry's parents had noticed my affinity for the store bought cereal delicacy when I visited, as I would eat numerous bowls in one sitting. Since Kerry's dad worked at a grocery store, he was always bringing home damaged boxes of the crispy stuff for free. One Friday I was over after school and when it was time for me to leave, her mom sent me home with a couple slightly bent boxes of cereal, claiming they had more of the mouthwatering morsels than they could eat.

At 6 AM the following morning my sisters and I got up very early, like usual, to watch Saturday morning cartoons. We sat in the family room that was still dark in the early morning hours and turned on the TV. In the glow of the television we sat eating bowls of the prized cereal and milk. We happily took huge drippy gulps of the rare flakes, mesmerized by mind numbing Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.

Suddenly one of my sisters gasped, claiming to have seen something. She insisted it was a tiny flying bug. I briefly paused, looked around, and seeing nothing, I continued chomping the delicious sugary granules. Then, I thought I saw a flying bug. I stopped slurping and noticed another. Now confident of the presence of the critters, I alerted my sisters and in our fear-induced frozen silence we noticed several little bugs, back lit by the TV glare, flying around us. Shrieking we inspected further and realized they were flying out of the cereal box we had placed on the floor in front of us.

Nothing ruins a love for cold cereal like seeing nasty weevil bugs soaring from your cereal box, and nothing ruins an appetite like seeing dead ones that have drowned in the cold milk of your half-eaten cereal bowl. And somehow Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons were never the same after that either.