A little Something for Everyone

In a world where everyone is some sort of a nut, health nuts have taught me to love cereal bars. When I was young and my mom did not let me eat or even look at any foods with artificial flavors or colorings because it might have stunted my growth (and I’m SO TALL now) or caused cancer, cereal bars were my mom’s form of dessert. Every day at elementary school I would hold my breath expectantly and reverently peel open my brown paper bag with one eye open, hoping against hope that there would be a cereal bar mashed underneath my sandwich of astronomical proportions. And some of the times I would find my strawberry Nutrigrain bar hanging out there. That, or some fruit leather, which is about as good as it sounds. So, like a flavored horse saddle.

Recently I started munching on cereal bars again. While visiting, my mother had pointed out a few things to me and I thought it best if maybe when I got the munchies I could eat something that would pass for something minorly unhealthy packaged in a small bag instead of an entire pizza or cake. I’m starting on cereal bars. Once I’m sick of those, I’ll start gnawing on my extra appendages and unnecessary digits. This is one diet I am really looking forward to.

Today when I was running out to class without having much time to eat, I thought this was a time if ever to eat a cereal bar. On the way to class. Like all those girls wearing the red shirts advertising Special K products. Which, as we all know, is just a very fancy diet designed in such a way that you eat nothing all day, and when you start seeing stars and are on the verge of passing out, you eat 11 flakes of the Special K cereal, or an entire, whole, full, complete cereal bar, which actually doesn’t sound too bad. Sounds like a good deal, right?

So I was going to class, walking, while opening my cereal bar. I peeled it open. Then I did a double take. Where exactly WAS this alleged cereal bar that was supposed to be inside? After whipping out my magnifying glass, I found it half way down in the packaging. The wrapping for the cereal bar makes it look deceptively big, like a Doritos bag. Nevertheless, I started gnawing on my sucrose-sweetened bar of joy that I could easily put into my mouth all at once when I got knocked into and half of my bar fell onto the street. That is, I THINK it fell onto the ground. It might just as easily have been picked up by a gust of wind and taken onto some rooftop. When I looked onto the ground to see if there were any salvageable parts, there was something that could have been a Special K cereal bar, but it could have also been a cigarette butt.

So what I want to know is this: When did everything become so extreme? This is a question that’s been asked by everyone. They can’t even leave cereal bars alone. You know, at least squish the thing flatter to spread it out more to make the starving child feel like she’s eating more instead of just eating a dime sized amount of food. That goes for everything. In order for anything to have an effect on people nowadays, they have to be extremes. Food has to be extremely small or extremely big, Halloween costumes have to be extremely scary or, ahem, extremely sexy, and you have to be extremely smart, hard working, or have extremely good connections to get an extremely good job. Or just a good job.

Which is another thing. Sexy witches? Sexy softball players? Sexy shepherdesses? I think I vaguely might even remember sexy nuns, but why, WHY can’t people content themselves with creative Halloween costumes anymore? I don’t know if they think they are being cute, but girls who think they are cute when they’re the naughty girl scout are, oh, how should I put this, STUPID, just like the 104 other girls who think they are so extremely irresistible because look! we’re putting an impish spin on an initially unsullied concept!

So for this fine day in which there are actually two reasons to celebrate (a few of you might know the second reason…) I would like to give a hand to those people who have an averagely funny humor. Who are averagely good looking. Who are of average height. Who have average length hair. Who are of average weight. Who can wear v-necked t-shirts whose neckline doesn’t end at the belly button or whose bottom doesn’t end at the knees. I would like to give the gift of telling all these sorts of people that it’s ok that you show more cloth than skin, and that it’s ok if you want to go as a baseball for Halloween. Because one of the last things on earth people need are more “sexy” popcorn venders.

This is also a call to Special K makers to make the cereal bars flatter.