I zipped to the supermarket. Making eye contact with no one, I nonchalantly pushed my shopping cart to the cereal aisle, searching for the American Airlines airplane on the front of the boxes that read, "Earn 100 AAdvantage miles." The "participating cereal brands" were not the kinds of cereal I would actually want to eat. No, this offer was good only on the many brands formulated to promote health and regularity. Cracklin' Oat Bran, All-Bran Extra Fiber, Bran Buds, Just Right, Complete Wheat Bran Flakes, Raisin and Strawberry-filled Mini Wheats, Product 19, and Mueslix. I began to pile boxes into the cart, managing to cram in about 50. In line, I pretended I was just another shopper. No one said a word at the first two grocery stores.
At the third and final store, the cashier asked, "Is this for your own personal use or a group?"
"Group," I said matter-of-factly. I would worry about which group later.
No one thought to list it in the specs of the car owner's manual, but you can fit a lot of cereal into a Saab—160 boxes, actually, with just enough room to see out of the rear window. How would I explain this if I got stopped or had a wreck? Fortunately, I never had to work that one out, but I did have to figure out how to get the coupon off the back of all 160 boxes. Arriving home, I calculated the number of trips it would take to get 40 bags (four boxes per sack) to my second-story apartment and decided instead to remove the coupons in the car.
The operation entailed opening each box, prying the wax paper bag of cereal away from the sides of the box, then removing the bag without splitting or spilling it. Next, I used an X-Acto knife to cut two sides of the dollar-bill-sized coupon on the box, allowing just enough room to get my hand in to cut the remaining part with scissors. Then I put the cereal bag back in the box and closed it. One down, 159 to go.
