The Cereal Box Standoff
Marcus Webb
3 min read · Sep 16
Breakfast: served, rejected, worn.
He wanted the cereal. He did not want the cereal in a bowl. He wanted the cereal in the box, and the box on his head, and no further questions.
It started at 6:41am, which is a time I did not know existed before children. He asked for cereal. I poured cereal. He looked at the bowl the way a food critic looks at a sandwich held together with tape.
The bowl, it turned out, was the problem. The cereal was fine. The cereal was, in fact, excellent. But a bowl implies sitting, and sitting implies a morning with structure, and he had other plans.
We compromised: he ate four pieces out of my hand like a very small horse, then wore the box as a helmet for forty minutes, including during a phone call with my mother, who could hear crunching and assumed the line was bad.
Somewhere in there I realised I was arguing with someone who cannot tie his own shoes and I was losing on points. That is the whole job some mornings. You lose on points, you laugh about it in the car, and you buy a second box of cereal because one is now a hat.
He wore it to the door. I took a photo. It is the best photo I own.
