CEREAL
Karenina Lucille
I threw a fit today in the grocery store. The type of cereal that I prefer was missing. Sold out. I wanted to cry my eyes out. I puled and stamped my foot. Then I turned to either side to gesticulate like a wild chimpanzee. Atavism. My friend Teddy was chagrined because a family of foreigners were staring at me and expressing humor. He could not comprehend that there was so much more going on.
I never used to eat that kind of cereal in the morning. The only kind that I enjoyed eating was sickeningly sugary and fruity or sweet and chocolatey. Kids cereal. The kind that turns the milk a different color. I always indulged in these guiltily. Keenly aware that they were comprised of empty calories, rotting my teeth and sugar frying my brain. Eventually, quite randomly, I stumbled upon a nutritious adult cereal that was also quite delicious. I did not even have to add sugar. I was finally a genuine healthy adult.
Now my treasure was missing. I stamped my foot in frustration and indignation. The earth is just so unjust. When you finally come to depend on something it is immediately snatched from your clingy embrace. I wish that it had never existed at all. I am doomed to unending misery. No amount of comforting could ameliorate my condition. The more that Teddy attempted to reason with me and assure me that “we” could find another type of cereal, the more he seemed in on the cereal conspiracy.
The very next day I had to rise and pretend to function like a normal adult. At work everyone could sense my unarticulated petulance. I secretly resented each and every
one of them for having the perfect, tasty, healthy cereal picked out that is always abundantly stocked at whatever grocery store they happen to do their shopping. People are so smug with their breakfast cereals.
Many of my coworkers openly smirked at me for my deficiency. Without so much as a word from me on the matter, they could all sense that I did not quite measure up to their exalted ideal. Even the ones who only eat oatmeal had a grin on their mealy-mouthed faces. I could have switched to eggs for breakfast if only I did not find them to be quite so revolting. I briefly considered French toast, but that would be allowing the arrogant cereal eaters of the world to triumph. Then where would we be? They would be running around waving their oats and bran in everyone else’s faces. Perhaps some would even flaunt raisins. The very thought was unbearable to me.
Teddy wanted to meet me at the coffee shop the next day. I felt happier than I should have felt. We had been friends for almost a year. We spent hours discussing books together. Both of us had devoured them since childhood as an escape from parents and a world that we could not make rational sense of. We vehemently conferred that Gogol was a wonderfully mad genius and that Walt Whitman was overrated and sappy. I started to admit to myself that the day at the grocery store I was purposely chucking my most difficult, puerile side in his face. Please do not get the wrong idea. I had not been faking my fit or exaggerating in any way. I was simply taking what I saw as the next step. Throwing it all at him and letting the fruity pebbles fall as they may.
The scent of newborn bagels and blueberry muffins permeated the air of the shop. Teddy nonchalantly purchased a particularly plump one along with his coffee. I accused
him of being a traitor. Boycotting all solid breakfast food, I ordered a large mocha cappuccino with three shots. We nudged our way to one of the few empty narrow tables. Crumbs remained on it from another patron’s breakfast. I tried my hardest to ignore them. It turned out that Teddy had something specific that he wanted to discuss which did not involve our safe havens of literature or science. He was not interested in another one of our psuedo-philosophical discussions that we often shared. What he was interested in was my behavior the other day at the grocery store. Just how atrocious my behavior must have seemed that day had not really occurred to me previously.
I decided that he must have come to tell me that after this meeting he refused to ever be seen in public with me again. His vexation at my puerility was justified. At the same time I did not think quite so highly of someone who would be concerned with what a gaggle of supermarket strangers thought. When I finally stopped ruminating long enough to actually listen to Teddy, I discovered that he was not upset about it. Instead her thought that your typical adult often feels like acting in such a manner, but manages to conceal it more effectively. He was somewhat amused by the other shopper’s reaction to my little temper tantrum and wanted to know more about how I felt that day.
I was reluctant to answer. He could very easily be coercing me into relating something personal that he would use to hurt me at a later date. The people who know your feelings are the ones who can really do the damage. However, he had not done anything to hurt me in the past year that I had known him. On the contrary, he had been nothing but a kind and compassionate friend through many situations. I wanted a sip of
coffee courage but it was still scalding. Instead I took a deep breath and attempted to make myself understood.
