Dear Cracklin Oat Bran

I had nothing but fond memories of my mother heating up a bowl of Cracklin Oat Bran and milk on a cold winter day.  The memories of a heated bowl in the middle of a blazing hot summer are less fond for me, but I still give Mom a pass for trying.

Somehow, I had forgotten about you until a few years back.  My housemate and I were sitting around, and somehow, you came up in conversation.  I am sure there was a long and protracted argument over what exactly your name was, and whether the correct method to eat you was hot or cold.  Most casual conversations in that house devolved into gentle mocking or less gentle drunken Brazilian dance fighting.  What I know for sure was that I ended up in my car, driving to the Acme to buy as many boxes of you as I could afford, because since I had remembered you after several years of absence, you were now new and shiny and therefore the best thing ever. 

What might have been helpful at that time would have been to know that you were specifically called Cracklin Oat Bran, or that you came in a small blue box.  I was armed only with a vague notion that you contained oats, and that you would most likely be in the cereal aisle, maybe lumped in with the oatmeal.  I was also mostly sure that you were still being made.  I entered the store with purpose and strode boldly to the breakfast aisle.  Several passes through the aisle later, my mumblings had reached a fevered pitch, and panic and agitation had risen to high levels. I looked frantically for someone to help in my quest, and saw an Acme worker walk by the far end of the aisle.  I began calling to her.  Normal people would realize the worker was out of ear shot.  I, in an excited state, took it as a personal affront, and pursued the worker.

Apparently, a man my size shouldn't stalk the workers of Acme though several aisles, all the while mumbling about tasty warm cereal.  This is made worse when the Acme worker is a teenaged girl.  That is all I am going to say about that portion of the trip. 

After the misunderstandings were corrected, I was shown exactly where you were located, on the bottom shelf, well below my field of vision.  I again grew somewhat belligerent to find that you cost almost twice as much as regular cereal for a box half that size, but I cut my loses, quickly bought several boxes, and gleefully consumed handfuls of you in the car.

I have since bought only two or three boxes of you, because you cost too damned much.  Please be less expensive, or change your formula and be less unbelievably tasty.  I can ill afford to have this scenario come up again.