Cereal Walls

Unlike my sister, I have never lived in a world without her in it. Being the younger sibling, I was, in the best of times, a fawning groupie trying to raise my status by affiliation with her star position as “the older one,” and in the worst of times, more like a deranged stalker for whom no restraining order existed.

She has always been the more studious, often retreating into books to thwart my petitions to play, which was representative of our mismatched personalities and divergent interests; she preferring to read, draw, or generally maintain an ambiance of calm, whereas I would be splayed out in the dirt somewhere building Lego ramps for my Hot Wheels. There was a time when I desperately yearned to wear her brown suede, leather-fringed jacket, but she would not loan it to me, citing that age-old grievance of older siblings everywhere, that I would most surely ruin it or stretch it out.

We had our share of petty offenses, childish misunderstandings, squabbles, and the like, and of course, the subterfuge ingrained in an ancient rivalry for parental attention. Our shared narrative also included many happy times evocative of childhood, including YMCA clubs, travels, and tales that have fallen into legend. Yet, genetics and temperaments aside, perhaps the greatest familial bond my sister and I uniquely share is our particular affiliation to cereal.

Our father was a boxed-grain fanatic. A native of Texas and the first generation of Americans to be relentlessly marketed to by the big-box cereal companies, thus launching the cereal consumption heyday, my Dad loved cereal more than any other food besides chocolate. I don’t know how it started, whether an unhappy childhood restriction to a traditional hen and hog Texas breakfast led to an insatiable appetite for fructose, dextrose and corn starch, or if he simply loved cereal so much that limiting breakfast to one type was akin to cereal sacrilege, but he never ate just one cereal type at a time.

We had an entire cabinet dedicated to cereal, and my Dad would mentally note when some boxes were low and methodically restock them, moving fresh boxes to the back and half-full boxes to the front. My sister and I had our favorites; she was a Rice Krispies and Raisin Bran devotee; I was a Count Chocula and Cocoa Pebbles enthusiast. Without fail, workdays or weekends, and even on vacation, our Dad would sit down for breakfast with two milk cartons, a glass of juice, a wide bowl, a spoon, and, given the Texas penchant for manners, a napkin. 

There didn’t seem to be an order of preference, other than Dad seemed dedicated to eating every box from kernel to dust before moving on to a new set of cereals. After setting the day’s selection on the table, the precise pouring of up to eight cereals at a time would commence. I never asked him if he purposely put the heartier grains on the bottom so they wouldn’t languish soggily in the milk. Only he knew the order, heaping them up to two inches above the rim, a miniature Matterhorn of cereal.

The milk, a specially created blend of skim and lowfat, was poured carefully, skillfully, so as not to upset the assembled mound. With the precision of a surgeon, my Dad would insert the spoon into his mix, withdraw a brimming spoonful, and open his mouth wide so we could see his gold-capped molar, then cram that bulging utensil inside. I never saw a single grain fall to the table while he ate his cereal, and rare was the occasion that he had a second bowl. The ritual remained unchanged throughout his life, except that in his older years, the bowl seemed smaller and the percentage of brightly colored, chemically enhanced kid cereal variety in the blend waned a little.

The cereal boxes became our birthright, and we used them variably as reading material, the cartoons a big selling point of the 1970s packaging, and as building materials. Some mornings after my Dad had already left for work, my sister and I would sit at the small table, which had just enough room to build a wall of cereal boxes between us. Other mornings, we would incorporate peepholes to look at each other, or, especially as my sister neared puberty and I remained intolerably childish, the walls would stay high and impenetrable.

As all good tales go, on occasion, an anomaly in the process would disturb our morning meal. We were used to listening to the snap, crackle, and pops in each other’s bowls, coveting prizes, comparing milk shades of pink or brown, or even stopping to show our expertly spelled Alphabits words, mushy from the patient arranging. 

One morning, the most retold morning of our cereal-laden childhood, something truly spectacular occurred. I was probably fidgeting, snorting, farting, or otherwise doing the type of dumb shenanigans younger siblings are known to do. Suffice it to say, I said or did something to make my sister laugh. It was a barrel of a laugh. Her mouth, full of partially popped Rice Krispies, struggled to stay closed as she laughed uproariously at my certain idiocy, and in a legend-qualifying second, a Rice Krispie flew out of my sister’s nose.

Honestly, I don’t know how we recovered enough to make it to class that day, and if our house hadn’t been located next to the elementary school, I don’t think we would have. I have never laughed so hard in my life except for the time my sister and I, in our thirties, blasted John Denver music in her convertible on the freeway in a successful attempt at severe uncoolness. That morning, I remember laughing so hard that neither of us could catch a breath long enough to explain the magnificent flying nose Krispie to my dumbfounded Mom for several minutes. When I had my children, the story surpassed legend to become family folklore, to be told and retold each time cereal boxes found their way to our table. 

It seems to me that cereals aren’t what they once were. The debates about sugar content, Red 40, fiber, and lack of fortitude, and what constitutes enough protein, have banished cereal to the snack category, and dimmed its crown as the King of the “most important meal of the day.” Cereal bars moved up in the food chain, but they will never hold a candle to the excitement that cereal had in my childhood. 

I still buy it on occasion. As an adult, I came to love Grape Nuts, although I rarely buy them, preferring coffee and a protein shake, a supremely lackluster meal in comparison. A brief discontinuation scare during Covid prompted me to buy up more Grape Nuts boxes than I could consume in hopes my contribution would tip the scales for Post to keep producing them. There’s something about their wheat-y, tooth-cracking crunch that makes me feel like I’m really getting a lot of bang for the buck. My other indulgence, Count Chocula, only makes an annual appearance these days, and the formula has changed so much, they no longer taste the way they used to but instead are reminiscent of chocolate corn. I wonder sometimes if cereal will cease to exist with my generation one sad, crunchless day.

The story of the Rice Krispie flying out my sister’s nose pops into my head now and again. It still makes me laugh, every time, and transforms me back into that eight-year old girl, disheveled blonde hair, nightgown and bare feet, forever fixed in that moment of elation. And I realize there really is nothing greater between siblings than those silly stories, and the happiness I felt to make my sister laugh in that tiny kitchen, just the two of us there enjoying the signature meal of our childhood, smiling with my oldest best friend as we sat on metal kitchen chairs behind a wall of cereal boxes.