Tag: cereal

That non-nutritive cereal varnish

I felt like I was truly in “Christmas Vacation” yesterday, when I poured myself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal. You see, this bag of cereal has been open for months, truly. And it has been not just open but not even clipped shut the past month and a half, at least. Basically, there was no way I was expecting anything other than stale, slightly squishy and likely no-crunch cereal when I went to bite into this cereal. No way. This is Houston, Texas. We don’t have non-stale cereal that has been opened more than a couple weeks at most, and that’s with a good, tight roll and bag clip.

No, there was just about zero chance this cereal would be anything more than slightly-satisfying stale stuff.

And yet, as I bit down on the first two pieces, just to have a sample before eating it with (almond) milk, I was shocked with a genuine, solid, and real CRUNCH!

My immediate thought was, It’s that non-nutritive cereal varnish! No joke.

Not sure of what that means? Well, do read:

“Oh, the Crunch enhancer? Yeah, it’s a non-nutritive cereal varnish. It’s semi-permiable. It’s not osmotic. What it does is it coats and seals the flake, prevents the milk from penetrating it.”

Still lost as to where I’ve gained this bizarrely unique information about cereal? Allow me:

Clark: I went ahead and I put a 7500-dollar deposit down on it.

Bill: You're the last true family man.

Mr. Shirley, approaching: Mark!

Clark, sipping: Mmh. Clark.

[silence]

Clark: That's Bill, sir.

[silence]

Mr. Shirley: Are you the one who was working on that non-nutritive cereal varnish?

Clark: Yes, sir.

Mr. Shirley: I’ve gotta give a speech to a trade group. I'd like to mention it. Write up a brief summary and have it to me by the end of the day.

Clark: My pleasure.

Mr. Shirley: Layman's terms! None of that inside bullshit jargon that nobody understands.

Clark: Yes, sir.

[Shirley starts to leave]

Clark: Oh, Mr. Shirley… Ah, we got your Christmas card the other day, and my family and I are very flattered that you remembered us.

[silence]

Associate: Corporate cards.

[silence]

Mr. Shirley: Don't forget that report, Bill.

Clark: Yes, sir. Thank you. Merry Christmas…

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christma— Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass.

Happy Hanukkah.

My own personal serving of cereal with an almost-definite non-nutritive cereal varnish that worked wonders! 😛

Happy almost Christmas in July! ‘Tis the season, ne?! 😛

Post-a-day 2023

Nerd

Today, I noticed this on the back of a Golden Grahams box.

Grammatically speaking, it should read, “Remember the ‘80s” instead of, “Remember the 80’s”. See the difference? Well, the apostrophe goes before the numeral eight, because we are dropping the 19 from the front of the whole number (1980), and the number is referencing ten years as a subject, not something that is possessed by the number 80 (like a hamburger).

Well, anyway, I remembered how Malcolm Gladwell talked about how companies – I think he even said cereal boxes – bank on the crazy people who actually call the numbers on the ‘Questions or concerns?’ section of the box, because they are going to be the ones who truly notice things. And so, I turned the box around to see if there was a number to call for questions and comments…

Indeed, there was. And I called it.

After sitting on hold for a minute or two, I was connected to a representative who kindly accepted my grammatical information and then read it back to me correctly before forwarding to whatever team deals with the boxes and the words on them. He even asked for the cereal box barcode, so that he could include that in his report. It was awesome. And then we thanked one another and then parted ways happily and it was a ridiculous and awesome event.

Post-a-day 2022