Oatmeal

---------------------------------------Here’s a little ditty, not too dumb or witty; Alike for country bumpkins and denizens of the city. ----------------------------------------

Oatmeal You… have been spoon-fed oatmeal for what seems like an eternity in this great land of ours. Never questioning, always accepting the great oatmeal cardboard cylinder as the truth, ad infinitum, it has kept your “movements” somewhat regular, day after week after month after year for generation upon generations. The oatmeal has seemingly been your friend as well as a friend to your colon. This grain, in our subconscious, has become so engrained, that purchasing it is more of a Pavlov-esque, motor response than a worthwhile shopping experience. Yet we continue salivating at the sound of the bell, never knowing or questioning why our shirts are soaked in pungent drool. The fact that the texture and taste and quality have degraded and ebbed to the point of occasional food poisoning (mostly from Sino-Oatmeal ventures), has not deterred us from continuing our steadfast “patriotic” patronage of this institution. Could it be that tried and bad is better than true and new? So what if it’s become plain, tasteless, bitter pabulum in the past decade or so. Are you so certain that, given some more time, the taste will resurge and, given even more time, will actually surpass the taste of the best oatmeal we ever had? Will it? Every day the same thing. Same thing every day. Oatmeal. Oy, vey...

Ahhh…So you’re enthused by a slightly different package this month.

"Check it out. Maybe it's changing, finally," your sub-conscious beckons, because this particular package of oats comes with a dousing of imitation Alaskan maple syrup. Yum or yucky doesn’t matter because you’re going to buy it out of habit anyway, aren’t you? While this excites your bored taste buds at first, the titillation doesn't last. The artificiality punches through any remnant of whole grain goodness that may have been there at one time.

“Maybe some Log Cabin would make it taste better,” but ultimately, you decide against it on moral grounds. You innocently hop, skip and jump over to the good ol’ grocery store, naively believing, every mis-step of the way, that they will do the right thing and return the money to an unhappy customer. After all, isn't the customer always right? Doesn't the customer always come first?

However, upon complaining to the cashier up front, she points you to the aisle manager, who shrugs off your complaint to the assistant store manager, who brings you into the antechamber of the executive office to look into his handy-dandy, operations manual. “The Grocery Store Bible,” boldly states the gold-leaf lettering on the Italian leather cover. "Let’s see if the answer is in here," he blindly states reassuredly. "What to look up what to do in case of an irate customer," he whispers under his shallow breath. Ultimately, he finds the section, but it is dirty and stained with what looks like a mix of blood, tahini, and motor oil. Entire sections have been cut out and erased. Entire paragraphs have been blatantly reworded to fit the paradigm of the editor. Somewhere between the ink and the stainage, the assistant manager is able to decipher: "Refunds given only before purchasing the item." “There it is sir, plain and simple-ton,” says the glassy-eyed assistant manager. “But that doesn’t make an iota of sense,” you argue.

Obviously irritated from your spontaneous, brainy-challenge, he sends off a monitored email and a beeper-GPS-cell-phone-page off to the Commander-General manager, who is no where to be found in the store, since he is always on vacation. But eventually the pork-barrel-bellied chieftain waddles into the office, still groggy from his eons-long nap. "Boss, what's our policy on refunds for a customer who is not happy with the taste of his oatmeal?" the lowly assistant crows. The huffing and puffing, ill-suited manager manages to muster enough hot air through his pharynx to sound authoritarian, "No refunds ever on that product. There hasn't been a single refund because of dissatisfaction on that product since we introduced it 232 years ago. Listen son, I'm sure if you take it home and add some sugar it'll be alright." Your jaw goes lax, but you are no slack-jaw. "Why am I being treated like this," you wonder. "I have to go. We are getting ready for our big, quadrennial oatmeal sale. It’s the biggest one in nearly a century. Oatmeal of every kind. You name it; we'll have it...As long as it's oatmeal. Ha-ha-ha," he bellows from his "emphysemic-from-smoking-too-many-Marlboros" lung sacs. Incredulously, you stare at this portly pig as he mumbles some gibberish about not knowing what's best for me and my colon. He shakes your hand, musters a hoodwinking half-smile and, never really addressing your needs in this day and age, or looking you directly in the eyes for that matter, he implies his closing line, "I can count on seeing you at the oatmeal sale, right?" After the boss-man departs, the assistant manager regurgitates an abridged version of what his tormentor just said. He thanks you for expressing your concern about the oatmeal. Ushering you out of the office, you detect a tone of condescension in his closing lines, "Try it again and I'm sure you'll find it quite tasty. If that doesn't work for you, try it again with your eyes closed. Maybe it will taste better then”. Bewildered, befuddled, and feeling berated by the barrel-bellied bastard and his clueless crony, you walk the aisles of the supermarket, in a daze, and then finally make your way, for what seems like the umpteenth time, to the hot cereal aisle.

You're thinking, "F#@* oatmeal," but what other remedy is there? It's been oatmeal, oatmeal, and oatmeal since forever and a day.

Glassy and crimson-eyed, with blinders on, you stare up at the usual shelf, expecting to find the usual gamut of oatmeal, and you are right. It’s oatmeal, oatmeal everywhere. Then, not unlike the robots that assemble cars on the production line, your hand reaches out towards the familiar. Out of the crimped and frayed corner of the left blinder you catch a glimpse of something unfamiliar. It is a rectangular box, peeking out from, and defying, the circular logic of all the cylindrical oatmeal tubs. You interest is piqued, as the opaque, liquid film over your eyeballs subsides. "What the hell is that?" you sheepishly let out from your lips. You squint to make out the name.

It's Cream of Wheat. You are confused, but you can't help but to smile back at the smiling man on the box. You ask yourself questions of puzzlement such as: "I wonder what this will taste like." "I've heard about it, but how come I've never seen this package before." “Could this be better than oatmeal?” Your trembling fingers pincer-grasp the box out of its cubby hole. Serving Suggestion: Prepare with milk and Grade A Amber Maple Syrup for a most delicious treat. Wait. All your life you've been told that there's nothing better than oatmeal. Your father and his father and his father always said that Cream of Wheat will only cause you trouble. "Never, ever eat... The Cream of Wheat," I can still hear my grandpaps rhyme.

"Can it really be true that this is what I need?" you pause. You are conflicted because your colon has gotten used to the oatmeal. Many dormant, latent issues come to the forefront of your mind. The questions come fast and furiously: "What if I get constipated?" “What if it isn't as good as it is described?" "What if it is better than oatmeal?"

Then it dawns on you, like a lightning flash to the visual cortex, that all your ancestors, despite eating oatmeal all their lives, died from colon cancer anyway. You grin, grab five boxes and finger-hook a quart of Authentic Maple Syrup. You head towards the cashier who first greeted you. She breaks into a plastic "Wal-Mart Greeter meets Dollar Store Cashier" smile, "Come on down, there's no one on this line.” You stop dead in your tracks, but newly revived, for an eternal moment, look her way and cut a slice of sincerity across your lips. You evoke a Paul Newmanesque smile. "That's okay. I'm doing the self-check-out today. Her smile cracks like a barrel of crude off a rocky mountaintop. "Come again soon. The big quadrennial oatmeal sale is next month," she sells unconvincingly. "I doubt it. I'm done with oatmeal for now," you wisecrack. You check-your-self out, pay cash-ola, and revitalized, return to your piece of the American dream. You feverishly prepare the smiling box of grain. You love the Cream of Wheat. "I guess I didn't know any better," is your parting thought as you finally relax in the recliner and drift off into an alpha-maple state of bliss. Now you know. Cream of Wheat. No excuses. Yum.

-----------------------------------------"Maple" X 10/02/2008 We are on a karmic and racial precipice as a country. I know that. You know that. How’s your conscience? Is it a bit achy today? Have you grown a callus over your heart and a white-cataract over your eyes? ----------------------------Feel free to forward.