Remember When?

Here’s where I show my age.

Last night, Ray and I went to the grocery store. Off of my mother’s comment about my “belly,” (which Ray thinks I’m obsessing about far too much. I’m not obsessing about it. I’m not. Shut up.) I decided to go and purchase some granola so that I could have granola and yogurt in the morning, maybe with some fruit mixed in. That’s got to be healthier than the usual crap I wind up eating in the morning, right?

So, I trudged over to the cereal aisle – that’s where they keep granola, right?

Immediately, I spied with my little eye (which is NOT bigger than my stomach, thank you very much) several bags of premium granola of the organic variety. It was a little out of my price range considering the microscopic amount that came in the bag. I pondered this for a second, and then realized that I was in the “specialty” section, which is code for “really fucking expensive.” Since our local grocery chain has its own organic food branch (Central Market – great place to gawk if you’re in town. Combine it with a visit to the new Whole Foods world headquarters downtown and you’ll be in heaven if you’re a foodie), and most of the stores carry Central Market brand products that are cheaper than the other organic brands — and more importantly, because Central Market-brand granola is the sort of thing I would expect them to market — I decided to troll down the cereal aisle in search of the non-specialty granola.

And search I did.

I found all sorts of cereal. There are cereals that incorporate chocolate, honey and powdered sugar. There are cereals in the shape of animals, cereals with animal mascots, cereal that resembles bird food, cereal that resembles bird poop, cereal that markets rock stars, pop stars, sports stars, cereal that makes you thin, cereal that makes you fat, cereal that makes you poop, cereal that makes you constipated, and cereal that is made for people who don’t like cereal.

On the other side of the aisle, I found every sort of granola bar, breakfast bar, breakfast muffin, granola breakfast muffin, oatmeal, oatmeal bar, oatmeal breakfast bar, and oatmeal granola breakfast muffin bar known to man kind.

I did not, however, find plain old granola. I swear I’ve purchased store-bought granola that didn’t come in an organic bag before … haven’t I? Or has all of the processed sugar in my diet and extra weight around my waist caused my memory to go faulty (OK, maybe I’m obsessing a little)?

So, now I have a recipe for granola and I’m going to make my own. Take that, organic food companies!

Sigh. Am I really becoming *that* guy?