Chipmunk Cereal Dreamin’ on Such a Winter’s Day

I searched behind the sofa cushions for bitcoin.

We were going grocery shopping.

Old Man Winter had covered the roads with butter, but they were passable.

I parked the car and joined the happy throng in search of victuals.

We had a list for guidance and filled the shopping cart with the things we needed.

My wife needed to consult with the pharmacy about our new insurance because our old company no longer exists except in our polished memories.

  She told me to stay by the cart and she’d be right back. My two jobs while shopping are to gather items from the top shelves out of my wife’s reach, and to stay by the cart. I doubted the “right back” part.

Gentlemen, start your shopping carts. I had a buggy full of groceries and time to waste.

I went for a walk and roll.

I perused the pizza and ice cream sections looking for pizza and ice cream loaded with vitamins and fiber. People gave me advice about ice cream, but not about pizza. I moved to the health food area, which was a hop, skip, jump, lunge and a couple of burpees away. I needed a prescription to read the backs of the cereal boxes there and had an urge to visit the restroom after reading about that much fiber. There was more fiber in one box of cereal than in the sofa cushion that hadn’t hidden a single bitcoin.

I steered the shopping cart to the other cereal aisle. The one where the breakfast foods from Lucky Charms to Grape-Nuts loomed from the shelves. Dad ate Grape-Nuts. He consumed it first thing in the morning because he knew something better would happen to him later that day. It had to.

I ate Grape-Nuts when I ran out of “my growing boy cereal,” which was Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions). I called Grape-Nuts gravel, but that was unfair.

Wheaties were advertised on WCCO Radio in 1926 by the first pre-recorded commercial jingle that went something like this: “Have you tried Wheaties? They’re whole wheat with all of the bran. Won’t you try Wheaties? For wheat is the best food of man. They’re crispy and crunchy the whole year through. The kiddies never tire of them and neither will you. So just try Wheaties. The best breakfast food in the land.”

It’s impossible to keep from dancing to that.

As I amused myself while waiting for my wife, I became a kid in a cereal store. There used to be a lot of enjoyable reading on the back of a cereal box. There were interesting facts that let me know if I was about to be fortified with my daily minimum requirement of riboflavin, and challenges of connect-the-dot mazes. The cereal box was the morning newspaper for children. There were hidden treasures to be found in boxes of cereal. Whistles, secret decoder rings, trading cards and baking soda-powered submarines.

As my eyes darted from one brightly colored package to the next, each one declaring itself delicious; none claiming to taste like disappointment. So much for truth in advertising.

As I stared at cereal boxes staring back at me, I remembered the day a chipmunk got into the house. It made a wrong turn, but my wife prefers her chipmunks outdoors. She yearned to hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet going out an open door to the great outdoors. An outraged dog and cat were locked in a room without a chipmunk. Having a free-range chipmunk in the house isn’t as rare as unicorn tears, but it’s not conventional. The tiny rodent had taken refuge under the living room sofa. My wife placed a line of peanuts on the floor leading from the sofa to the open door to entice the chipmunk outside.

Time passed as if we were waiting for a chipmunk to leave.

Cap’n Crunch might have worked better. How could a chipmunk ignore those tiny, yellow corn and oat pillows?

Later than sooner, the little mammal grew homesick and vacated the premises.

I’d decided to get a box, but which one? I couldn’t use the toy inside as the deciding factor.

I tossed Cap’n Crunch into our shopping cart.

We’ll be ready for the spring chipmunk invasion.