Cereal offenders

Sometimes I wonder if the Truman show could really be real, and if I am actually, unwittingly, starring in my own reality TV show called "The Blackie Show", and if everyone and everything around me is just one big act.

Then my boss yells at me to get back to work, and the fantasy of hitting him with a brick and strolling confidently away because I know they won't put the star of the show in prison evaporates as fast as the water from my milky tea.

Anyway, part of the reason that I wonder about this is because sometimes I kind of feel as if there are lots of people watching me. Other times, I think someone's having a bloody laugh at my expense. I think they're deliberately provoking me, in very subtle ways, to see what kind of reaction I'll give. It's sort of like some sick kid's science experiment, and I'm the guinea pig.

Take for example, breakfast cereals. Someone out there is having a competition to see how bland they can possibly make breakfast cereals before I explode. And, let me tell you, they're coming damn close.

Now, I eat breakfast because I'm a good girl, and that's what all the magazines and tv shows tell me to do. "Eat breakfast and you'll be happier, smarter, thinner, live longer", etc. I also eat it because I'm always bloody starving in the morning. Thing is, I don't have time to eat fancy breakfasts. I don't have time to peel and prepare bowls of fruit. I don't have time to boil eggs and make soldiers out of toast. I don't have time to grill bacon or tomatoes and arrange them on plates with cups of freshly brewed half-caf-skinny-lattes. I certainly don't have the time (or the funds) to go to Starbucks every morning and buy a proper coffee and a muffin. So, the only choice left to me, really, is breakfast cereal.

My first memories of breakfast cereal are of my mother trying to shove lumpy porridge down my throat before kicking me out the door to school. I still, to this very day, feel physically ill at the mere sight or smell of porridge. Since then, I've pretty much stuck to the Kellogg's-type cereals.

Every now and then, I try to be good and eat healthy cereals. Bran Flakes. All Bran. Weetabix. Not all at once, of course. God, I'd spend all day "powdering my nose" if that was the case. But, you know, I tried to do the right thing. And then I remembered that those cereals, unless you drown them in sugar, taste like cardboard. So I stopped eating them.

Then I decided to indulge my inner brat, and I bought things like Frosties, Coco Pops and Ricicles. I'd wolf down a bowl and then tootle off to work, with my teeth feeling like each one was wearing a sugar jacket, and then they all fell out (metaphorically) so I stopped eating those.

Next, I went for muesli. And quickly stopped that.

Rice krispies - I was starving about half an hour after I'd finished. They really are little puffs of air!

Special K - the grown up breakfast. Expensive, and completely not worth it. The first mouthful is alright, and after that it all tastes like newspaper.

Shredded Wheat - holy jesus on a pogo stick, could they make a cereal more disgusting? Obviously the reason it's shredded is that it contained some highly confidential information (such as that fact that it tastes like shit) and somebody somewhere didn't want that info to be leaked to the press. That's one cereal that should remain in the bin.

The list goes on....

And then I had an epiphany. Crunchy Nut Cornflakes - my last bastion of hope in an endless aisle of breakfast hell. And it was a miracle! I ate the first bowl and practically had an out of body experience from sheer pleasure. Honey! Nuts! Brown sugar! Is there anything more delectable on this planet? I don't think so!

Of course, in the ads for Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, they say something like "so good you have to have it twice" or some such drivel. And it's true! They're so sodding tasty that you have to have another bowl. Pretty soon, you're eating four bowls a day, and that's with you holding yourself back!

And then it happens. One day, out of nowhere, you get up, pour yourself a bowl of heaven and you think "I dont think I can do it. I dont think I can stomach another bowl of this delicious cereal". For, you see, the old saying is true - all good things must come to an end. After about three days, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes have become bland. The horror! The horror!

And so I'm back to square one. I've returned to the one breakfast that I can rely on. The breakfast of champions - instant coffee and a banana. If I was a smoker, there'd probably be a few ciggies thrown in there too, for good measure.

My head hasn't exploded yet..... not yet....

P.S. If the producers of The Blackie Show are reading this, I need some new batteries for the TV remote. Thanks.