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This isn't a new edible, rather one I've passed by countless times over the past few years. Each time I did, I grew more and more curious. I never really saw a reason to buy it, but there was certainly some small part of me that was just dying to see one of the strangest "food gimmicks" ever in action for myself. I don't know if it was the late hour, the store's oddly dim lighting or what, but finally, I found myself on the checkout line holding what's assuredly the strangest box of oatmeal God ever let slip by his "Okay For Society" radar. It's Quaker Instant Oatmeal...WITH HATCHING DINOSAUR EGGS!
My oh my. To be perfectly honest, I think it's a genius idea. Few kids, even if they like oatmeal, are going to choose it over the unholy amounts of neon-colored cereals boasting wild cartoony shapes and sugary marshmallows. Quaker's pissing in the wind with their regular stuff -- there's just no way you're going to persuade children into eating gloppy spoonfuls of oats when Lucky Charms keeps adding new marshmallows. By throwing candy dinosaurs into the mix, they're assuredly upping their sales with the young demographic. More importantly, they're giving the world the chance to hatch dinosaurs simply by cooking stupid oatmeal. Everybody wins, and our collective interest in the prehistoric world is heightened in the most delicious way possible. Yeah.
Still, it's amazing what these food companies have to go through these days to compete in the children's market. Seriously, it's to the point where they're literally selling toys that just happen to be edible. Traditional meals are almost a thing of the past, or at least, the companies stopped fooling themselves into believing the majority were still indulging in 'em -- fact is, we're living in a society where milk-entrenched cereal has to be fitted into candy bar form. Really. As more and more parental teams share full time jobs away from home, there's fewer and fewer people crying out against what's considered -- when it all boils down -- just a buncha junk food. So, as strange as it might seem for Quaker to chuck crappy dinosaur candies into their oatmeal, at least it's still oatmeal. Course, I'm not here for a cultural overview. I just wanted to show you the damn dinosaurs.
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Well, the "eggs" certainly looked the part. I had to call upon powers greater than my own to resist biting one in half, and since retrospectively it wouldn't made for a good analytic picture, there is a lingering doubt I'll make it past midnight without drinking peroxide while firing a shotgun at my face just to make sure I actually die. The oatmeal box's emphasis on brown sugar is realized by the huge cohesive blob of it; reminiscent of those sticky, urine-dried corners typically found while cleaning a rabbit cage. The oats themselves do well in protecting the eggs from harm during transport -- not a single candy dino met a failed, premature birth. With the help of Quaker, I stood to raise a pack of survivors.
Though they included instructions detailing how to microwave the shit, I opted for the traditional route in the hopes of providing better nurture for the future fruit of my loins. Pouring boiling water over my fragile, unborn dinosaurs was one thing -- but to shove the boys in the microwave? Hell no, it'd suck all the validity out of my "#1 Dad" bumper stickers, currently on their way in the mail. Oh, and for the record, you know that old saying about watched pots never boiling? Not true. 14 minutes, 49 seconds. Okay I made it up. Elephants never forget, and watched pots never did done the boil.
I recalled my old trick on how to change stagnant red lights to green. The only catch is that you need to have someone else present. When a light's been red forever, with no signs of changing, all you need to do is turn to your friend and start complaining about how the traffic light "must be broken" or that it's "the longest light in the entire history of your driving experiences." The second you do, the light will change and make you look completely idiotic to whomever you chose to share with this. I absolutely, 100% promise and guarantee you -- this works every time. Sure enough, the second I started questioning our teapot's state of health, that familiar whistle went off, seemingly louder than any train in the entire history of my training experiences. I looked foolish, again, but at least the shit was done.
Whoops, forgot about this picture. I put this here so I could fabricate a story about reading the package's "dinosaur facts" to pass the time while the water boiled, but I've already passed the boiling water part. Now it's just some conquering, pixelated obstacle I must face before returning to the flow originally set. Damn this image to places unpleasant, the ruiner of dreams and the thrasher of paragraphical sensibilities. I now return to my boiling water, picking up the pieces as best I can.
I've realized that for years, years spent without ever really making oatmeal, I've always had this dream where something magical happens whenever boiling water touches it. It proved deeply saddening when combining the ingredients didn't do much -- it just sorta slops up the dried oats. I'm not really sure what I expected to happen...maybe I was thrown off by the more numerous experiences putting those little capsules that turn into circus animal sponges under hot water I've had than with cooking oatmeal. Still, the intrigue was kept up by the close watch on the soon-to-hatch dinosaur eggs. The actual oatmeal's finale was nothing to applaud for, but the show wasn't over yet.
Hmmm. Interestingly enough, I saw no dinosaurs, of even a sign of the eggs. I stirred the oatmeal just as directed, but still...no dinosaurs. Could I have been had? Would Quaker, presumably part of a publicly traded company, lie to the buying consumer and just throw in quick-dissolve "joke eggs" as part of the most colossal joke in the entire history of my experiences with colossal jokes? What's going on here? I mean, there's no way I just misunderstood how things worked with these hatching dinos -- the box tells the story:
See? Not only was I right to expect dinosaurs, but I could've justifiably gotten away with expecting more candy dinosaurs than I've ever seen before. Don't worry, they eventually turned up -- buried under the weight of a batch of oatmeal made with entirely too much water. I turned to the tacked-up picture of Mario Van Peebles beside me, mustered up enough courage to admit fault, and let out those healing, penance bringing words. "My bad. Mario Van Peebles."
It took a few minutes, but I finally gathered up a decently sized collection of the newborn monsters. Some likely perished in the Great Flood, but no road is without its bumps. Here's the surviving dinosaurs, displaying their mulatto heritage, in a spoon that honestly wasn't as dirty as the picture makes it out to be...
I was anticipating a sort of "jellied" dinosaur candy, but much to my surprise, they're more like flavorless Flintstones vitamins. They really don't add anything to the oatmeal tastewise, so the novelty wears thin unless you enjoy randomly inserted "crunches" while eating what's been a pioneer in the realm of baby food for adults. There's only two types of dinosaur candies -- green tyrannosaurs and red stegosaurs. My dinosaur family was large, but lacking variety. Kinda feels like a waste to name them now; there's no way I'll be able to remember which is which later anyway. Within that deep pool of kiddy food gimmicks, this turned out to be one that looked better on the box. Quaker is no longer the right thing to do.
I threw the collected dinos atop the oatmeal, hoping it would bring to life Quaker's various claims of "fun" and "goody." The entree remained pathetic. I guess all those years of fantasizing while passing that box of "dinosaur oatmeal" raised my expectations a little too high.
Overall: To be fair, the bar was raised to the point where I would've been disappointed if the eggs didn't hatch into three-foot lizards that hopped out of the oatmeal to a self-sung chorus of radio hits. I can see where it works -- kids are all about the small pleasures, lots and lots of small pleasures, and starting the day with a breakfast that gives birth is a nice way to kick things off. The dinos add virtually nothing to their caloric content, so even with the candy, yeah, it's still healthy happy oatmeal.
One thing, though -- after handling and taking pictures of a bowl of oatmeal for fifteen minutes, it didn't really seem right to eat it. Didn't really seem right to throw it away, either. What do you do when your oatmeal has no home? Score some brownie points, duh.
RETURN TO X-E!
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