So. Let’s say it’s time for breakfast, the most important meal of the day, and you’re seriously jonesing for some waffles.
Now, if you’re like me, you could want waffles bad — real, real bad, even — yet still not be able to muster the motivation to mix the ingredients, get the waffle iron down from the shelf, and griddle up a big ol’ mess that you’re just going to have to clean up anyway.
I mean, maybe you don’t even own a waffle iron. Plenty of people don’t. There’s no shame in that.
I guess the next logical step would be to toast up some frozen waffles, but really — frozen waffles? Ugh. No food develops freezer burn faster than a box of waffles. They’ve got a window of, like, six days before they get all puckered and gross. And even in that window, they aren’t very good. Even when I was a kid and shouldn’t have known any better, I knew that frozen waffles were for dogs and poor people.
So what’s a lazy, waffle-jonesing breakfast eater to do?
It’s NEW! Eggo Cereal Maple Syrup Naturally & Artificially Flavored!!!
(It’s a crunchy waffle-shaped cereal, just in case you were wondering.)
Again. Homemade waffles: Delicious. Remember how Mom used to make ‘em? All fluffy and buttery, beckoning to you from the plate in a stack of delicious breakfast-y goodness?
Eggo Cereal Maple Syrup Naturally & Artificially Flavored waffles? Not so much.
You know what’s worse than the way these shriveled little unwaffles look? The fact that there is, in fact, not a drop of fucking maple anywhere in the box:
How do I describe the taste? I choked down the last of my bowl about an hour ago — even chased it with some yogurt — and Eggo Cereal Maple Syrup Naturally & Artificially Flavored is still ringing in my tastebuds, yet I’m not sure how to put it into words. I mean…crappy? Very bad? Quite gross? Yes. But there’s something else. A certain je ne sais please God no more. The flavor is sort of vaguely waffle-like, yet also completely not. It’s kind of like looking at an old family Christmas portrait and noticing that your mom’s nipple is showing — just familiar enough to provoke warm, happy feelings, yet absolutely, awfully wrong.
I guess the bottom line is this: Yes, making waffles is a pain in the neck. But it beats eating this stuff.
