Cereal

“What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?” my teacher asks through the screen with a wide smile, clearly proud of herself for the out-of-the-box attendance question. It’s a nice effort, to be fair, to try to engage everyone in the “classroom”, but the seemingly simple issue hits too many memories in my mind and somehow I’m no longer trying to find an answer for it.

~ ~ ~

When my parents immigrated to a completely foreign land, which later became my birthplace, over 20 years ago the only cereal they knew was light, popped grains of rice, sorghum, or millet, made in huge brick ovens and sold in kilograms back in their home country. It was far from the aisles of colorful cereal boxes that they were seeing then, miles away in every way from everything they had ever known.

~ ~ ~

“Are you going to finish it?” my parents ask me carefully, eyeing the cereal box in my hand (differently colored than what they usually buy) with suspicion as we stand in the grocery store. Somewhere inside of me it’s like a switch turned off; I examine the box myself, my eyes skimming over the list of ingredients, the colors, the “artificial flavorings added”; the grinning, predatory mascot that seems to scream to me, “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM.”

“No,” I say, putting the box back in its place among other boxes.

~ ~ ~

The teacher calls on me. “What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?” she asks again.

“We don’t really eat breakfast cereal,” I reply, thinking of huge brick ovens and the popped rice they make.