When’s the last time you had a nice bowl of Frosted Flakes? It’s been years for me. I’m not sure why, they are delicious – perhaps the greatest of all the breakfast cereals – and yet I just keep ending up with some sort of lesser cereal that’s not even a little bit frosted. I guess this is part of getting older. As we age, our cereal selection gets progressively worse – more bran, more fiber, fewer marshmallows – until eventually we just give up and settle for plain Cheerios.
Are we powerless to reverse this trend? Am I doomed to a future of bland breakfast cereals that have no toys inside? Is there any going back?
Part of the problem here is societal pressure. If I saw my buddy at Publix picking up some Cookie Crisp I would feel obligated to mock him, and he’d probably be forced to come back with, “Oh these? These are for my kids.” Sure they are buddy.
Your cereal choice says a lot about you. It’s a window into other areas of your life. A grown man with a box of Lucky Charms and another with some no-nonsense Corn Flakes are clearly taking different life paths. Personally, I’m very insecure and want to be perceived as a respectable mature adult, so even if I’d enjoy Froot Loops more, I end up getting whatever stupid granola bran garbage it is I get.
Now that I think about it, Frosted Flakes are kind of in a gray area as far as being culturally acceptable for adults to purchase and consume. They’re certainly more acceptable than your Capt. Crunches or Fruity Pebbleses. Sure, Tony the Tiger is more of a kids’ mascot, but the cereal itself is pretty straightforward – no brightly colored marshmallows or other gimmicks, just flakes and frost.
Speaking of Tony the Tiger, I found out through the painstaking research of this article that he was voiced for over 50 years by a gentleman named THURL RAVENSCROFT. This achievement alone would have been enough for any normal lifetime, but this virtuoso also found the time to sing “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch” and provide the scary voice for “The Haunted Mansion” ride at Disney World. That guy won the game of LIFE many times over.
I guess the lesson here is that getting older stinks in many ways, not the least of which is that you are doomed to a future of progressively worsening breakfast cereals. Or are we? Maybe there is hope. Perhaps we can start a movement. Perhaps one by one, through bold cultural sacrifices and without shame, we can stand together and say with one voice, “I’m old but I still like Frosted Flakes – deal with it.”
Perhaps one day we can live in a world where grownups are free to load up on whichever ridiculous children’s cereal they like, without the fear of judgment, scorn or sneering derision from our fellow man.
Filed under: F Commentary, Food Tagged: aging, breakfast, cereal, commentary, culture, Food, Frosted Flakes, philosophy