The First Stirring of Love (Part III)

Part I || Part II
The end of our brief relationship hit me hard. Although I had only known Michelle for a short period, I had high expectations for our romance. After all, most girls just aren’t that flirtatious. Most are unwilling to blow out their colon regularly. Even Trader Joe’s High Fiber Cereal wasn’t popular with girls. After all, light sugary fare (which could hardly be considered a real meal) has a the bubblegum pop-music feel so many girls adore.
My hopes had been focused on Michelle, like sunlight through a magnifying glass. I’ve been through a lot of relationships in the recent past, with a lot of wonderful women, but nothing had really worked out. It felt like I was throwing the sticky men included in bags of cereal who flop down walls at the monolithic wall of life, but they all slid down eventually. I thought she’d stick. To make matters worse, I began building her up in my mind, making her into someone who couldn’t possibly exist.
Daydreaming at my job, I’d imagine us going to the supermarket in the afternoon, and walking down the cereal isle with arms outstretched, two carts abreast, knocking boxes right into the baskets. I imagined us touring the General Mills factory. We’d be eating Basic 4 straight off the assembly line, and in would burst Dave Mackay, CEO of Kellogg’s, in the nude, and he’d empty boxes of Rice Crispies all over us. A week’s worth of nights were wasted staring vacuously at the television screen. But what I was really imagining was her hopping through the door dressed as Trix rabbit, and she’d finally get to taste my fresh Trix.
I’m not a discriminating lover. I tolerated a girl who insisted we eat Rice Crispies dressed as Snap and Crackle, with her greasy high school boyfriend playing the role of Crunch. But I have to draw a line somewhere. As long as a girl fills her bowl with cereal before she pours the milk, we’re basically ok. If she doesn’t - it’s over.
After all - where’s the intimacy? They say relationships should be based on more than breakfast, but I just can’t see it. Breakfast ensures physical connectedness, after all, and that can’t be discounted.
So I missed Michelle, but it wasn’t really her that I missed - just the concept she stood for. Someone whose cereal I could pour, or who could sweep up when I tried emptying Cheerios through a torn cellulose bag. It was really the graceful cereal pouring of Lindsay - sweet, sweet Lindsay - who I missed, even after two years.
But I was done with Michelle.