A Recently Fired Food Writer’s Review of Your Favorite Breakfast Cereals
Does anything froot my loops anymore?
Trix
This colorful cereal boasts natural fruit flavors like Lemony Yellow™, Orangey Orange™ and Grapity Purple™. As I gaze at the Silly Rabbit on the box, I yearn to feel an ounce of his ambition. He tries so desperately to taste the cereal he hawks, but is continually thwarted by cruel children and their arbitrary “Trix are for kids” rule. It’s not unlike when I asked for a promotion and my boss at BuzzFood, a popular food blog, laughed in my face and pointed out my inability to meet the weekly deadline for our Keto Korner column. Alas, the Rabbit soldiers on, perhaps merely satisfied to have any purpose at all, even if it is entirely futile.
Froot Loops
This popular cereal sparked a playful debate among hungry children — is each color a different flavor, or not? But as a calloused adult whose curiosity for life’s mysteries has long since waned, I know the disappointing truth: each loop, despite their superficial contrasts, tastes the same, and my desperate attempts to demonstrate my worth on this lonely blue planet have proven, time and again, to be frootless. Case in point: Shannon got the promotion instead of me. Shannon, the perfect little brown-noser, who has only worked at BuzzFood for SIX MONTHS — but everyone fawns over her because her ramen burgers story went “viral” (whatever that means).
I cynically chuckle at the cereal brand’s slogan “Whatever Froots Your Loops” — a nonsensical, shameless attempt to target supposedly deep-pocketed Millennials like myself. But as Toucan Sam stares at me with his dead eyes, I can’t help but wonder… Does anything froot my loops anymore?
Cap’n Crunch Oops! All Berries
This limited edition cereal features round berry shapes without the traditional Cap’n Crunch pieces, thanks to a mix-up at the Cap’n Crunch factory. The Cap’n is not alone — we’ve all had our fair share of “Oops!” moments. Perhaps I shouldn’t have set Shannon’s desk on fire (though it’s not like she was sitting there when I did it). Plus, my boss pretty much extinguished the flames before the fire department even got there.
I implore the Cap’n: don’t feel ashamed of your mistakes, because nothing in this rotten world matters! We are all mere collections of atoms randomly buzzing around this gaping pothole we call a universe.
Count Chocula
I was unceremoniously fired from BuzzFood and now am stuck publishing prose on (I shudder) my personal Medium account — perhaps forever. I look at Count Chocula and wonder: Is immortality a gift or, more likely, a curse? I close my eyes and imagine an eternal existence like that of the sweet-toothed vampire. The tides of time endlessly wash over me. At 900 years old, my days slowly pass with no blissful demise in sight. Eventually, the swollen Sun mercifully bursts into flames, incinerating everything around me. I feel nothing, not only because I failed to find a meaningful career during my myriad lifetimes, but because everyone I’ve ever loved was already dead.
By the way, this will be my last review for a while since I’m about to start a new job. Some filmmaker read my blog and hired me as a script editor. His name is Werner Herzog? I hadn’t heard of him.
Anyway, subscribe to my blog for more cereal updates, and keep frootin’ those loops, or not. It doesn’t matter.
Sara DeForest is a standup comic and freelance copywriter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @saradeforest.
