Cut it Out, Organic Flax Plus Maple Pecan Crunch! The Story of My Enormous Cereal Cluster.

As some of you may know, my favorite food group is cereal. Cereal of choice? I shouldn't have to say it. But fine. I'll say it. Great Grains (I'm so whipped by Post it's not even funny).

In my daily life, I hear a lot of "well, why don't you try different cereals?" "This cereal looks a lot like Great Grains; you should try it" and "you really need to get a life and stop talking about cereal so much." And you know what? I listen to all of these helpful suggestions. And I reach my open arms out to many different cereals and attempt to welcome them into my heart.

AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS.

(...read ahead to see what happens!)

There are certain things a cereal must have in order for it to please me. Minus availability in Canada (sigh), the second most important factor is the presence of clusters. Nut clusters, grain clusters, oatmeal clusters, I don't care, gather whatever ingredient you have into a small, condensed bunch and I will enjoy it. So naturally when I saw Nature's Path Organic Flax Plus Maple Pecan Crunch cereal, I was all like, whoa, I gotta try this cereal so maybe it can fill the gaping hole in my heart that is caused by the lack of Great Grains. I know that's a lot of pressure for a cereal but I don't care.

So I poured my first bowl of NPOFPMPC and stared in wonderment/fear at the site I beheld.

You wanna talk clusters? Holy cow.



I really wasn't prepared for this. That's the monster maple pecan cluster next to a normal flake. Notice the slight size difference.

Just to give you a bit more perspective on the size of this thing, I hired a hand model to pose for this picture.



It was the biggest cereal cluster I've ever seen. It was so big, it was bordering on obscene. It took over my cereal bowl and when I picked it up, I felt like I was holding a small, newborn kitten. Or a very underweight baby. That thing had weight to it. It was almost as if the cluster had somehow absorbed all of the other clusters and formed a giant, hybrid cluster. It took me at least half an hour (30 minutes) to eat it and then I was sad that it was gone.

And oh, how I loved that thing. I wanted more clusters like that. So I decided to write Nature's Path and share my story and ask all of the questions that were naturally running through my mind. Specifically, did God intend for ME to receive that cluster? And should I quit my job now that I've experienced something like this? I needed answers.


I hoped that Nature's Path would be able to give me some advice and guidance, and more importantly, more giant clusters. Did any of this happen? Read on.



As you can see, Nature's Path understood that this was a serious matter. And as suspected, Irene told me this was an extremely rare occurrence (which just gives more evidence to my "chosen one" theory, right?). Irene also told me that my giant cluster has led Nature's Path to try new oven cleaners and revise their sanitation plan. I guess it's true what they say--one person (or cluster) CAN make a difference in the world! I find this very inspiring. I'm also happy to see that Nature's Path workers must wear hairnets and clean uniforms. It's more than I can say for myself.



(A quick Google image search for "huge cereal cluster" brought this up. Please. My cluster could absorb that cluster in like two (2) seconds.)

I meant to reply back to Irene and tell her that no apologies were necessary--I was commending Nature's Path on the giant cluster, not complaining about it! But then I became too busy using up the $20.00 in coupons that Irene gave me. I've bought at least four (4) boxes of Nature's Path cereal since, hoping to discover another monster cluster. No luck yet. But, like seeing an angel or winning the lottery, events like that only come along once in a lifetime.

As always, I like to consult the experts on matters like these. So I did a quick check on Yahoo Answers to enquire about cereal clusters. While I didn't find any situations similar to mine, there were some important questions addressed. Like whether eating cereal will prevent me from getting six-pack abs. (Apparently not. Yay.)

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Alq6Wxfy6XgX1XvIYp99oT8jzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20100226085342AA6xEhm

And here's a hot tip: keep an eye out for a hot new cereal to hit the market, as an inspired consumer is creating a fish-flavored cereal. About damn time!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiUYVlKm1HQStnt1vvJa.twjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=1006041803396

I'd go with Salmon Chunks, but hey, that's just me.

(A quick Google search for "Slammin' Salmon" informed me that apparently "The Slammin' Salmon" is actually a 2009 movie made by the guys who did Super Troopers. Who knew?! Slammin' Salmon received "mixed to negative reviews" and had the unfortunate tagline of"Bring a bib, it's gonna get messy.")



Chances of watching this one are....slim.

I'd like to thank Nature's Path for choosing me to experience this enormous monster cluster. I hope I haven't let you down. I'd also like to thank Irene for her superior customer service. With her coherent sentences and use of multi-syllable words, I am almost certain that she's not a letter-writing 'bot (I will also use this time to tell Micheal Carpenter of Post Cereals to suck it).

Have any of YOU have had a gigantic cluster in your cereal? If so, how did you handle it? If not, do you wish you had? As always, I wanna hear all about it!