Random Complaint of the Day

To the food-scientists at General Mills:

Gentleman and ladies, I was wondering if you could quit playing with the liquid nitrogen long enough to bring your attention to an important matter. I understand that freezing random objects like bananas and breaking them with hammers can provide hours of entertainment–were I in your shoes, I’d be doing the same thing–but something simply must be done about your Total cereal.

Quite simply, the way in which your cereal compacts itself into my teeth is unacceptable. It’s a fine cereal. It’s got a nice taste, a nice mouth feel (which is something I know you people work on) and, of course, it provides a day’s worth of essential nutrients and vitamins, which prevents me from having to eat 20 bowls of Special K. Yet, after eating your product, it sticks in my teeth–in between them and, curiously, inside the cusps of the molars, as if, once masticated, it turns into a cement of some sort.

Given enough time and saliva, it will disappear of course. But I’m a busy man. And I’m a busy man who doesn’t like stuff getting, as the kids say, all up in my toothbrush. Now, sure, I could pre-rinse. Don’t think I haven’t tried. I swish and swirl. I’ve tried water and milk and Listerine. But it’s still in there and will not budge until the toothbrush is applied. Granted, I can rinse out the toothbrush, but there’s just something downright icky about seeing chewed up Total flakes in my bristles.

I have faith that you can do this. My other go-to cereal, your very own Cheerios, presents no such problem. And while the folks over at Kraft are taking on airs and selling their secrets to restaurant chefs like Grant Achatz, you’ve kept our nose to the grindstone. You’ve managed to get honey and nuts into Cheerios, invented a square-bottomed taco (though for marketing purposes, I understand you’ve attributed this breakthrough to a young Mexican child), and you’ve brought the spark of life into a lump of Pillsbury dough (though I still think some horrible Planet of the Apes scenario will result from this playing God).

I trust you will make haste on this problem. I’d hate to have to launch a #totalfail campaign on Facebook and start a “I Hate Total in My Teeth” Facebook group or, if it came to it, abuse my position at work and launch an investigative series. This is not my style and I’d rather just switch to another brand, but as hinted at above and as made clear in your previous ad campaigns, there is no other Total equivalent and I have neither the money, time or appetite to eat the multiple bowls of cereal necessary to achieve that level of nutrition.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Ken Wheaton