The Smell of Nabisco Shredded Wheat (Sid)

Scent and memory: writing about this pairing inevitably beckons one of the Vices. Mind you, not one of the old fashioned Allegorical Vices such as Pride or Avarice, but an Intellectual Vice. I don't have an exact word for this particular personification. The vice is analogous to one of the deadly sins of poetry, the stock expression. For example: the grand arching boughs of an ancient forest are a cathedral of nature. I suppose that was brilliant the first time it was used. The poet was both accurate and poetic. For the sin I am about to commit, I apologize.

The smell of Nabisco Shredded Wheat triggers a particular memory. However, before I go into that memory, there are two outrages that beg mention. Of course Nabisco Shredded Wheat has been Post Shredded Wheat since 1993. I shouldn't say of course, because I spent an afternoon searching for Nabisco Shredded Wheat recently. It is now Post. That is outrageous! What possible profit could there be in Nabisco getting rid of their signature product? The other outrage is Nabisco's foul treatment of Graham Crackers. It was one of my particular joys to unwrap the wax paper of Graham Crackers. The wax paper was a “way back machine” taking me way back to 1829 and Sylvester Graham wrapping up his health snack. Anyway, the wax paper is gone. And good luck even finding the red box. But enough!

Once upon a time I decided to do a Science Fair Project. I thought that it would be very scientific to train mice to run a maze. My sister had a boy friend (well there were actually several or it seemed perhaps more than several). This particular boy friend had some used lab mice. So we struck a favorable deal. I wasn't allowed to have the mice in the house so I set up my experiment in the warehouse. It isn't every family that has a warehouse, but we did. I trudged through the snowy 5 acre front lawn,over the barren tennis court to the warehouse door. The tennis court was built flush against the warehouse. It was built way too close so that there was only about 4 feet of back court. The opposing court only had 4 feet of back court but at least there was grass rather than a warehouse to crash into. It was a hillbilly tennis court.

The cheap wooden door of the warehouse was secured by 2 padlocks through eye screws. This was the typical of my father's peculiar architectural design genius. (I “lost” the lower padlock ASAP.) The door required a swift kick to un-stick it from the threshold and I was in my laboratory. There were cardboard boxes tied with sisal twine piled to the ceiling. There were thousands of pints of paint in weird and not wonderful colors. And there were old leather suitcases with busted latches filled with stuff bought at a pawn shop going-out-of-business auction. In the suitcases were very interesting items. There were many electric razors (How much money could the poor bastard have received pawning a shitty old razor? $1.00?) There were broken watches. And there were rings. There were silver rings with multi hued “diamonds”. There were gold settings without stones. And there was a man's ring. This fit me and I took it. It was a gold ring with a square tan and white cameo. The cameo was carved with two overlapping “Caesars”. There was a small crack that would later come in handy for identification when it was stolen in gym class.

There was a small bit of room behind the door where there was a small propane heater that maybe kept the paint from freezing. That was the spot for my experiment. The mice didn't seem very energetic when I put them in my cobbled up maze. They actually seemed quite uninterested in going anywhere at all. I opened my box of Nabisco Shredded Wheat. The boyfriend told me that was the thing to feed the mice. This was my first exposure to shredded wheat. My first time. My first whiff. There on the rough poured concrete, under the sickly green flickering fluorescent light struggling to warm up. There with the faint odor of leaking paint and mildewed leather. There with my irradiated, dying mice that were not interested in eating. There I sat on the floor with my back against the cold block wall eating the Nabisco Shredded Wheat. Every day for a week I tried to train the mice. I hadn't quite finished the cereal when the tails started falling off. And that is what I remember every time I open a box of shredded wheat.