I Am Like The Grim Reaper Of Cereal

I think maybe it goes back to my childhood when I voted for Quake in the Quisp vs. Quake election (the hex-nut shaped Quake, symbolized by a construction worker, lost to the concave disc Quisp and its cheerful alien mascot and was discontinued; other than shape, the cereals were, of course, identical) but if I like a cereal it is practically guaranteed that they will stop making it, this has happened over and over again, in the mid-90s I was a fan of a Kellogg's cereal called Oatbake, they pulled it from the market and I settled on Cracklin' Oat Bran as a substitute which I've been eating for so long that I no longer even remember the superior taste of the glorious original; similarly I loved another Kellogg's brand called Apple Cinnamon Squares, until they were folded into the Mini-Wheats line (what a titanic corporate struggle that must have been, full of strategizing and war rooms and late night phone calls to one-time friends who now remained ominously silent when asked for their support in the upcoming battle) and ultimately discontinued entirely; for a time I admired an organic cereal called something like Sunrise from one of the big conglomerates, no doubt as with the Saturn at GM there was much internal resentment of something that promised a new way of doing business that might, if not checked, spread throughout the company, and it was soon discontinued for failing to enjoy the 70% profit margins other cereals made of wood shavings and shredded wallboard enjoy; at one time I adopted as my own, as a harbinger of a new healthier lifestyle I was about to embark upon, a cereal called Empower (and who could resist a call like that from a box on the shelf?) full of things I never knew I was lacking until that moment, like selenium and neon and quadrivium, and I ate its dried blueberries and little maple-tinged twigs as if I had rediscovered the very diet of mountain men who lived to 114 and wrestled bears into their 90s, as one anthropologist described a similar cereal it was "a miniature Levi-Straussean museum assembled from the stolen bodies and cultural sacra of the past, and reworked into a modern narrative," and who can disagree with that, but soon it too vanished, much like my resolve to eat better and exercise and wrestle bears, and I have been forced ever since to eat pale shadows of that perfect blend of twigs and mulch (selenium-rich mulch, mind you) like Optimum and Flax Plus, too sweet, too dry, too twiggy; and so it goes, cereal after cereal, mind you I'm sure there are cereals not even I can kill off, Corn Flakes, Corn Chex, mighty cereals such as these are impervious to the penumbras of my death rays, but give me a less hardy cereal and my custom will be enough to doom it, I should be hired by Kellogg's to work my way through Post's or General Mills' line like a Lepke Buchalter with 33% of your recommended daily allowance of death and disappearance, fortified with niacin, riboflavin and extermination, a delicious part of this complete funeral.

Quisp and Quake were far from identical, if I remember correctly. Quake was much crunchier, and a virtual clone of King Vitamin or Captain Crunch, while Quisp was prone to sogginess. Sort of the fried vs baked Cheetos.

While we haven't killed any serials, over the last 23 years of marriage, we've managed to see the death of several brands of frozen pizza (thankfully giving up on the concept entirely).

Mike G wrote: in the mid-90s I was a fan of a Kellogg's cereal called Oatbake, they pulled it from the market and I settled on Cracklin' Oat Bran as a substitute which I've been eating for so long that I no longer even remember the superior taste of the glorious original;

It wasn't just the taste, it was a texture. The original one didn't have coconut, and was much less shaggy. I liked it much better and gave up entirely on Cracklin' Oat Bran.

Who knew that Quisp, Quake, and Cap'n Crunch were basically the same cereal? Until I read the entry below, I certainly didn't!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisp

I appreciate the fact that you didn't go for the "cereal killer" pun.

Re: Cracklin' Oat Bran...

Are you referring to the original or reformulated Cracklin' Oat Bran? I remember when this stuff first came out, I was hooked. I don't know from Oatbake. Then, maybe a few years in, they changed the recipe and it was markedly worse. I've never gone back. Not much of a loss for me, personally, at this point, as I rarely eat cereal for breakfast anymore.

My family loved the Cracklin' Oat Bran, although my husband started calling it Cracklin' Cat Food because that's what it looked like.

I haven't purchased it in a long time and wasn't aware they had reformulated it.

Suzy