Getting funny looks from the checker at Wal-Mart

I spent portions of my senior year more or less living on generic maple frosted shredded wheat. Not the healthiest choice, I'll admit, but not wholly devoid of nutritive value either. As a breakfast and lunch coupled with a protein rich dinner with plenty of veggies, it probably wasn't too terrible to do for a week or two at a time. It's cheap, tasty, and I've never gotten sick of it.

A couple of weeks ago the store quit carrying the cereal. I sighed and resigned myself to finding other breakfast choices and perhaps occasionally getting my fix by buying a box of the much more expensive name-brand variety.Then today I strode into Wally World determined to buy one, and only one, needed item. No impulse buys for me today, no siree. I'm over budget as it is.

Naturally, the first thing I saw as I walked in was the huge display of clearance cereal with the name-brand maple and brown sugar shredded wheat marked down to a dollar a box. For a mere $17.12, including tax, I was able to acquire 196 servings of the stuff, all guaranteed by the manufacturer to be good through June 12. (Andrew Tobias would be proud.)