Upheavals

Cereal killer

My wife found a fly in her cereal this morning. It was a big fly. About the same size as the generous berries that the cereal is meant to be packed with. Except this “berry” was black. With wings. And judging by the look of it, it had been a passenger in the manufacturing journey for some time.

(Fortunately my wife saw it before she tasted it.)

Of course, in these circumstances, one’s mind quickly turns to legal matters. Not knowing the calorific content of the creature, I can’t comment on whether its inclusion would have affected the advertised low fat content. So, not sure if we have an infringement of the Fair Trading Act here, although it certainly introduced an element of repulsion which I noted wasn’t included in the list of ingredients.

And we can’t tell where the fly might have come from, so thank goodness, this country doesn’t have compulsory country of origin labelling. Because “out of thin air” hardly constitutes a recognised national territory.

Seriously though, when she rang the company’s 0800 number, my wife got an answer machine - which disappointed her more than a little. Because as she rightly pointed out, flies and any other intrusions cannot be trusted to turn up in packets of breakfast food during business hours.

Be interesting to see how the company responds.

Will they ring and apologise? Or, in a variation of the Parrot Sketch, will this be one of those situations where someone acknowledges that my wife has registered a complaint and then suggests that the animal was just resting and could in fact have been pining for a fiord?

(In case they want to check the plumage, the creature’s on ice in a bag in the deep freeze.)

Needless to say, we’re converting to toast.

POSTED: Sunday, 25 October 2009

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