My mother gets The Crimson at home. She doesn't really read it, but she always checks the menu and takes comfort in the fact that Mike Berry is feeding her daughter well.

Little does she know.

The menu bears absolutely no relation to my meals because I don't eat the food Berry no doubt slaves over daily in a hot kitchen. Instead, I eat Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Crispix, Life, and, on a healthy day, a bowl of shredded wheat.

And I am not alone: there is a silent majority of cereal-eaters out there, held quiet by allegiance to the meal plan, or maybe because there's no real campus forum for discussion of the cereal-as-meal issue. Frankly, cereal is low-fat, involves no dead or mistreated animals (I think, since I'm not quite sure what's in those magic marshmallows), tastes reasonably good (or at least really, really sweet) and allows one to relive precious childhood memories. And you get that fiber the college student on the go needs to have in her diet.

Occasionally, one gets questions about the cereal habit. It's true that the average adult does not eat small pieces of sugar grain in milk three meals a day. (Hence the need for those stupid Tony the Tiger commercials). But, for me at least, safety is a concern that overrides any roommate stares: there is no surer way to avoid Mystery Meat or any permutation thereof.

And those strands the hair nets just don't catch (and other unsavory human drippage inevitable in a kitchen) aren't ever found in my food. Just pink hearts, yellow diamonds, blue moons, orange stars, green clovers, red balloons, teensy rainbows and the occasional stray raisin.

Bon appetit!