Kid-Tested, Mother-Approved? Syke!

Kix is the Ralph Wiggums of cereal: Round, yellow, not too bright, innocent, sweetly endearing. But instead of saying things like “I’ll iron you” and “My cat's breath smells like cat food,” Kix just kind of sits there.

I recently bought a very humongous, 18-ounce box of Kix at the local Pac N Save because it was on sale for some ridiculously low price, because I hadn’t had it in years, and because I remembered liking it as a young lad. My wife was skeptical. “Kix are lame,” she said, or something to that effect. I rebuked her. “No, they’re not!” I insisted. “They’re great!” (Though I didn’t drag out the ‘r,’ so as not to offend the nearby boxes of Frosted Flakes. They're sensitive.)

So I brought the comically oversized box of Kix home with high hopes. I planned to snack on them right out of the box (one of my favorite disallowed cereal habits), mix them with other cereals, and even treat them to their very own bowl of pristine milk -- many times over, in fact, due to the sheer gigantitude of this box. I'm telling you, huge. Big enough to hug.

A couple weeks later, I regret to inform you that things have changed: My 8^th grade self was a dumbass. Kix just isn’t very good. There’s no substance to it, and little to like about it. It fails in the tasty category (a lightly sugary nose with a cardboard finish) as well as in the all-important crunch test (a cloying, cornmeal-like texture upon first contact with moisture). Not even blueberries help. Banana slices do a bit for it, though. Sub-par as cereal, passable as a snack.

I suppose that if you were a kid raised on plain oatmeal, pressed khaki slacks, and Bryan Adams, Kix would seem pretty damn sexy. Barring that, it’s blander than sand. And despite the “Kid-Tested, Mother-Approved” dealy-o, it ain’t healthy, either. It’s just puffed corn balls dappled in sugar. If that’s good for you, so are Corn Nuts.

I’m only halfway through my box of Kix, and the most fun I’ve had with it so far was trying to toss the round little pieces into a wine glass from five feet away. One time, I made three in a row. It was awesome.