Puffs O' Air

Lyra and I have been on a Fruity Pebbles kick. As in, I buy three boxes and we race to see who can scarf the most bowls in one twenty-four hour period (or until the cereal is gone, whichever comes first). Lyra tends to win, but I can put up a pretty good fight, considering that my bowls are about five times the size of hers and I have more rules, i.e. I limit myself to eating with a spoon only. But these so-called “pebbles” are delightfully delicious. (Ever wonder why Fred Flintstone drives a high-tech dino excavator? He works in a quarry, and this cereal is what he’s mining for.) They come in all different colors, reminding you that there are not one but many fruits of which our taste-buds can partake, but the flavor itself is just ambiguously fruit-reminiscent. As if the people at Post or General Mills or wherever the hell this cereal is made were all, hmm. What if we took all the fruit flavors and mixed them together? Would that taste good? (Answer: it wouldn’t.) And it didn’t work so they just kept adjusting it until they had captured The Essence of Fruit Flavor, stamped it into little weeny pieces, boxed it, and sold it to millions of children (and their parents) everywhere.

My god those pebbles are tasty.

Yet, like all artificial and delicious things, overindulgence leaves me feeling a little… empty. I almost feel as if… what do you call it? Right, like I haven’t eaten ALL DAY. Because I haven’t been, really, not by any stretch of the imagination; I certainly haven’t been doing what normal people call “eating.” Rather, I’ve been copiously spoon-feeding myself of what amounts to AIR. Tasty, flavored air, but air nonetheless. Which leads me to realize that the people at Post or General Mills or wherever the hell this cereal is made are geniuses. First they lure me in with brightly-colored packaging and Fred Flintstone’s beaming face, then they keep my coming back for more with their addictive fruit “flavor.” Best of all? They’re not even selling me anything! It’s just air!

I guess that’s all most cereal is, just flavored air, and that also explains why I’m always mystified when I can’t scarf ten bowls of Grape Nuts. It would also explain why on the commercials they always show the cereal being served with toast, eggs, juice, hashbrowns, and a side of bacon, because let’s face it, the cereal just tastes nice. It doesn’t really do anything.

Whatever. Tomorrow’s another day, and if I have to earn my right to my Fruity Pebbles by serving up a side of bacon, so be it. I’ll do whatever it takes. Those pebbles are mine.