Shreddies

At some point in my misspent youth, I kept conjoined Shreddies in a box. It was all part of a grand master plan: once I'd collected a suitable number of freak cereal bites, I meant to mail them all to the Shreddies factory, along with a letter of complaint:

Dear Shreddies Men,

Let me preface this letter by explaining that I live in a Scottish household. I wear darned socks, carry my lunch to school in a plastic bag, and use my old clothes as dustrags. When I go to the SPAR shop, I get a little thrill, knowing that "spar" means "save" in Swedish. When they took the ha'penny out of circulation, I wore black for a week. My nursery-school nickname was Ebenezer. And, most important of all, I never spend a pound seventy-five if I can have a vastly inferior product for a pound-seventy-four.

Which brings me to your cereal. Although it is bland, quick to sog, and entirely devoid of texture, I have been eating it for several years. Generally speaking, this has been a disappointing experience. I like something hot in the morning, see--nice plate of bangers and mash, maybe, or a big bacon buttie. But these things take electricity, and electricity's expensive. Money doesn't grow on trees, and so forth. So I come downstairs every morning, and what do I find? Half a bowl of Shreddies, that's what--and half a glass of orange juice, and my younger sister, who eats with her mouth open. I try to block out the sight with the Shreddies box, but it just isn't tall enough.

The meat of my complaint, though, hasn't to do with the box. While subpar in its capacity as breakfast fort, your box does an adequate job of holding the cereal in. The wax-paper bag inside sometimes opens in a funny way, spilling cereal down the sides, but that's not my complaint, either. I'm writing about the cereal itself. Please find attached:

a) Eighty double-Shreddies;
b) Thirty-six triple-Shreddies;
c) Eighteen quadruple-Shreddies;
d) One quadruple-and-a-half Shreddie;
e) Seven sextuple-Shreddies;
f) One monstrous Shreddie-collective, composed of twenty-six individual cereal bites.

(If the contents of the attachment are not entirely as described--if, for example, there are only fourteen quadruple-Shreddies, and a whole load of singles floating about--blame the postman.)

Shocking, what? A breakfaster could poke his mouth on that lot. I mean, who among us is at their most alert and observant at seven-thirty AM on a schoolday? Imagine I hadn't been on my game, the day of the monstrous Shreddie-collective! I could've given myself lockjaw, trying to fit that in. I could've put out an eye! There was, I'm sure you'll agree, potential for grievous injury, right there.

Anyhow, I'd like a refund. I figure I've eaten at least a hundred boxes of Shreddies, over the years. At a quid seventy-four per box, that's gotta be five thousand pounds, easy. Except, I'm living in Canada these days, so pounds won't do me much good. Let's see--at today's exchange rate, and adding in inflation, gestation, GST, PST, GMT, Tetley Tea, etc, I reckon you owe me about a million dollars. Please make the cheque out to Socrates J. Myles.

Cheers,

--Socrates J. Myles

PS - Why is it that Mini-Wheats rarely stick together, while Shreddies are stuck together all the time? Maybe you could get some pointers from the Mini-Wheats men.

But I got hungry one day, and ate the conjoined Shreddies all up. Shame, that. Could've used a million dollars.