Rounds and Squares and Flakes

Consider the snowflake, each unique as a QR code, given all the possibilities for crystalline formations. Better yet, let’s talk about cornflakes, equally un-replicable. If a cornflake were an island, as it is in a bowl of milk, it would show one deep harbor after another. No perpendiculars. You have to admire it for that. It’s as jagged as the right-hand margin of a contemporary poem, asserting its sui generis voice.

I am gazing into my bowl looking for the meaning of life. It’s as likely here as in the cottage cheese ceiling or the book I just found on my shelf,  written by some guru in a loincloth and scrupulously unread. Some flakes resist sogginess almost successfully, others succumb to milk from cows or almonds.

Where are you going with all this? I don’t know but I’ll think of something.

Truth be told I left cornflakes behind along with Wheaties many bananas ago.  Now, I’m a Catalina Crunch and blueberry sort of guy. But those old orange, rectangular boxes deserve a special place in my thrill-a-minute-life. Wheaties were probably my first newspaper as I spooned and read about their designated heroes. For a street urchin as I was, the athletes on the box became my brief idols. There was a certain magic in those words. I was becoming knowledgeable about something my parents knew not. These days the only thing I read on the box is the carbohydrate and fiber content. 

To stretch a point, American history took an unfortunate turn when, in 1937, Ronald Reagan became a celebrity at least in Iowa when he won the Breakfast of Champions award for best broadcaster of baseball games sponsored by…you guessed it, Wheaties. From there it was a short step into the Oval Office. Presumably, he was gobbling Wheaties in Hollywood, and as Governor of California and then, and then. Of such stuff B-movies are made. Is this a great country or what?

Now it’s time to talk about how cereal boxes are stored in the pantry. My stepdaughter used to alternate her three cereals, flakes, rounds and squares on consecutive days of the week. If it’s Wednesday it must be Cheerios. This became Christie’s way of ordering through the small anarchies of life.

Friend Fred arranged all his cans alphabetically. As he tells it this was done in case he wakes up suddenly blind, he could grab the tuna fish and know it isn’t salmon. I call it the Artie Shaw Syndrome. The clarinet playing band leader and leader also of obsessive compulsives, insisted all pillowcases face the same direction. Eight marriages later he wrote about it. 

Fred can’t play Begin the Beguine but has other endearing qualities. He was miffed when his daughter and son scrambled his pantry as a prank. They even switched the Hi-Lo Flakes with Bran Buds. 

He was confronted with the chaos of life. But he recovered in time to email them that he was sitting at his desk with his will and an eraser. Humor is the best revenge. As for the turmoil of existence I have no urgent need to tidy it up. Earth is round, borders square and life is irregularly flaky.

Yes, I know, sophisticated people scoff at cereal. A few cups of coffee rev their motor. Call it my arrested development. But my morning bowl has gotten me this far. Every day snaps, crackles and pops, in no particular order.