09-001

CHEERIOS AHOY! HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BEDS AND MARTINIS ARE DRY

The year 1941, produced one of the greatest time savers and inventions of all time, Cheerios, which were manufactured and sold by General Mills of Golden Valley, MN. The original product was tasty and popular and General Mills has recently made improvements.

The cereal has become so popular that physicists have coined the phrase “cheerio effect” when discussing fluid mechanics, meaning the tendency for small obliging floating objects to attract one another like opposite poles on magnets. This has also been called “cheerio magnetization.” An example of the phenomenon is the way the breakfast cereal tends to form clumps as it clings to the sides of a bowl when immersed in liquid.

PROPER PERSPECTIVE

While the marketing department at General Mills touts the cereal’s nutritional value and wide selection, I  have come up with an ingenious idea for an adjunct – Cheerios Ahoy!,  whereby you remove some Cheerios from the box and use them as target practice for potty training. They will clump around the bowl quite nicely.

Now, one could argue that other cereals can work just as well; as does the entertaining sound effect of yellow water hitting the bottom of an empty coffee can, but that only solves half the problem. To obtain optimum results for both ways, Cheerios are the best targets.

PROCEDURE

In order to succeed without the use of kinematic equations and projectile motion principles, you offer the little whippersnapper rewards based on accuracy and the total number of sunken Cheerios:

1.      Zero sunken Cheerios – rip out the last page of Baby Einstein “Peek-a-Boo Bard”

2.      One or two sunken Cheerios – read “Peek-a-Boo Bard” in its entirety

3.      Three to five sunken Cheerios – read Baby Einstein “Things That Go!”

4.      More than five sunken Cheerios – report the pipe buster

Rewards are limited only by the sheer genius and ingenuity of the Captain.

This potty training expert and analyst, yours truly, estimates that it will take less than one week for Cheerios Ahoy! to serve its useful purpose. Then, you can finally visit your offspring and do what you do best – read a bedtime story and fall asleep in a bed that is warm and like a good martini – dry.

HOW TO PROPERLY DRY A MARTINI

As a martini aficionado, perhaps I can shed some light on the dilemma of gin vs. vodka and shaken vs. stirred. Rather than take a poll, I have conducted my own research into the matter and have been satisfactorily inebriated for quite some time.

Shaken vs. stirred is rather moot after you have had five, so we shall focus, if that is possible, on the ingredients:

Only two ingredients are required: three ounces of gin and a dash of fortified, white, dry vermouth. Notice that I have ruled out vodka, as it doesn’t modify well with gin; and ice and garnish, as they add nothing useful to the drying process.

There you have it – dry bed and breakfast!