Why is cereal so frickin expensive? $4.59 for a box of Life? I don’t think there’s anything in Life cereal that’s worth $4.59. Heck, I don’t think cereal named Golden Bricks of Awesome Grain could be worth more than $3.00. Maybe the saps down at Kellog marketing think I’m so foolish as to be suckered in by the good times had by the characters on the boxes. You know who I’m talking about: the little boy who looks like his face is about to explode in joy at the prospect of eating a bowl of Life cereal; the cartoon kids who gambol and frolic about chasing cartoon leprechauns and occasionally crushing up those marshmallows to snort lines of sugary goodness; that old grandmother who glows after eating Shredded Wheat.
I’ll tell you why they’re smiling: they got free boxes of cereal. If they had to pay these outrageous prices, you’d see an awful lot of glowering looks on those boxes.
They ought to have a cereal called Stabby-Ohs, and on the box is a picture of Anthony Perkins holding a knife and grinning. Every time you pick up the box, a tiny microchip activates a circuit that plays the REEEE! REEEE! REEEEE! sound through an embedded speaker in the box top. Man, that’d be sweet. The cereal would be the shape of a shower drain. Cereal killers never tasted so infamous.
I never buy cereal that’s more than $2.00/box. Occasionally I’ll see cereal for $1.50, but usually it’s about $1.88 or more. I have no set cereal, but you tend to see the same cereals over time. The price cuts seem to happen to the same ones. On the other hand, there’s very little cereal that is actually “good”. Cheerios? Lame. Corn Flakes? Drab. Raisin Bran, aka Turd Flakes? It speaks for itself. Cocoa Crisps, as I recently discovered, are Satan’s gift to the cereal world, and Golden Crisp is like a stale bed of pebbles covered with honey. As if honey covers a multitude of sins. Honey is like the default cereal condiment. Whenever they come up with a new cereal and can’t think of a way to make it taste like something other than dried feces that resemble anchors or boats or hearts or rainbows, they just add honey.
EXEC 1: Hey Bob, we’ve got this new cereal called Banana Crisp Medley. But our boys down at the lab can’t seem to get the taste right.
EXEC 2: Just add honey.
EXEC 1: Brilliant!
EXEC 2: And make sure to jack up the price by about $3.00. Those saps think honey raises the cost of the cereal!
EXEC 1: When all this time we’re paying pennies for Chinese and African children to work 17 hours every day shaping those banana flakes into all sorts of amusing shapes! Man, we’re evil.
EXEC 2: Oh yeah. Pass the brimstone, would ya?
And they all have a good laugh about it and go off and take joy rides in their sports convertibles bought off the profits of their $4.00/box cereal. Lousy corporate cereal barons…