July 2007

The Mystery of the Walking Trail Cheerios

So I was out walking. Yes, believe it or not, I, Crazyguy, go for walks of my own volition. As I walked, I looked down at the path. Along the edge every so often I saw some scattered Cheerios. That's the breakfast cereal, for those of you who aren't in the know. Little crunchy donut-shaped breakfast-cerealy-things the size of ten-cent pieces.

As I saw more and more of these, scattered seemingly at random along the side of the trail, I got to wondering. Just how had they come to be there? I know of no-one crazy enough - not even myself - to eat a just-add-milk-part-of-this-complete-nonsense breakfast cereal on the go. However, I imagined if someone was this crazy, then it stood to reason they would end up spilling them everywhere. I had images of power walkers scooping up large spoonfuls only to have them dashed at their feet, thus saving them the trouble of the extra calories. But no, these cheerios were bone-dry, so that was theory number one languishing in the dust.

My next thought was influenced by a lady passing by with three snot-nosed kids in tow. Well, only one of them was truly snot-nosed, but I'm sure the others were at some time or other. Could it not be that one of these dripping youths, or one not unlike them, was responsible for peppering the verge with these fruitless Froot Loops? Perhaps, as an offering of pacification, the theoretical mother gave out `fun packs' of dry Cheerios for them to throw about? The odd one getting inadvertently eaten, of course. The rest becoming a trail for amateur trackers to follow, and people like me to puzzle over; in no real hope of a clear explanation. But alas, even this theory seemed as unpalatable as the Cheerios themselves, and as insoluble as the wobbly green underlines in `MS Word' that just won't go away.

The trail motif recalled to me a fairy-tale from the darkest depths of my past. Had these Cheerios been left, Hansel-and-Gretel style, to lead the responsible party back from some hellish destination? This theory was quickly dropped, for it was clear they would not only be crazy but silly as well to leave a trail along a paved pathway.

When my brain at last suffered through all these conundrums to the point that I needed an iced cappuccino, it hit me (the answer, not the cappuccino - that hit me later). The only plausible, down-to-earth, pudding-proving, contraceptive, stand-up-in-court answer to arrive at was this: Bigfoot. Yes, the answer to all mysteries can be attributed to Bigfoot in the end. At least if your name is Crazyguy, and mine certainly is.

-CG.