Published: July 18, 2008 01:29 pm            

Digesting life's little nuggets | TOM LAVIS

BY TOM LAVIS

TLAVIS@TRIBDEM.COM

It was hot on my boat as Crutch Crupnik and I enjoyed a weekend fishing trip.

The sun was starting to take its toll.

I opened the cooler and offered Crutch an ice-cold, man-sized 24-ounce soft drink that has so much caffeine it could stunt a child’s growth.

“Here, this ought to hit the spot,” I told him, happy to share a refreshing drink with my best friend.

I turned my back to my best friend, swung my rod over my shoulder and pitched my fishing lure.

I heard an awful scream come from the back of the boat, and I thought I might have hooked my buddy in the head as I made my cast.

“What in blue blazes are you yelling about?” I asked as I nearly dropped my rod into the water.

“That soda hit the spot all right,” he said, as he clamped his left hand over his jaw.

“This is all your fault,” he yelled as tears filled his eyes.

Now I really thought I had hooked him.

“There’s no crying in fishing,” I said in my best Tom Hanks’ impersonation.

“That’s not funny,” he said, as he squirmed in agonizing pain.

It turns out Crutch had chipped a molar that morning as he ate his Grape-Nuts cereal.

A sliver of tooth on one side of a filling broke away as he bit down on a particularly hard nugget.

“You were the one who said the tiny nuggets would energize me, but I never expected to be zapped like that,” Crutch said.

With a consistency of gravel, Grape-Nuts have been a favorite of mine for decades.

Sure, I’ve sacrificed some enamel in my time, but I have been a backer of the cereal that “fills you up, not out.”

I’ve been a Grape-Nuts fan since Euell Gibbons became the spokesman for the brand, promoting the food as the “back to nature cereal.”

But Crutch made the mistake of filling an entire bowl with these flavorful moon rocks.

I failed to tell Crutch that he should custom mix his cereal when consuming Grape-Nuts.

I usually place a generous bed of cornflakes in a bowl and sprinkle Grape-Nuts and drip honey over the top.

I like Grape-Nuts because it’s not a wimpy food.

Pour as much milk over the cereal as you like.

Go outside, cut the grass, paint the porch, wash and wax the car and when you return, the pebbles are still crunchy.

That appeals to me because there’s nothing worse than soggy cereal.

Trying to eat an entire bowl of these tiny nuggets is nearly impossible. Once they enter the stomach, they expand like freeze-dried basketballs.

The cereal is the official breakfast food recommended by the National Tooth Chipping and Filling Cracking Society.

These dentists recommend Grape-Nuts more than any other cereal because few patients require attention from eating oatmeal.

As most people know, the molar is a large tooth in the back of the mouth that is used for crushing and chewing food.

But when the inner core of the molar is exposed, things such as cold drinks, ice cubes and breathing can cause the jawbone to pulsate like a jackhammer on concrete.

Following the trip, Crutch made an emergency visit to his dentist, who performed a root canal to save the tooth.

Crutch called later in the week to tell me a crown would follow.

As I hung up the telephone, I wondered whether he was talking about crowning the tooth or me.

        

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