I am in Utah yet for another June of scoring AP World History essays, and we have reached the end of the week. While the Reading does help me teach my classes and is better than 100% of the “professional development” sessions organized by my school system, I always reach a point in the week when my brain loses touch with reality. This year, that moment came on day five of the reading. 

On day five, I walked into the aircraft hanger-style cafeteria at the convention center in Salt Lake, which is where we score the essays. Right away, I noticed a problem – no Honey Nut Cheerios.

 Since we spend 8 hours a day in Salt Lake’s convention center, I try to avoid the pseudo eggs and greasy sausage, foods that could compel me to use the toilet paper at the center, toilet paper that was described by Jim as more useful for starting a brush fire than assisting with personal hygiene. 

 
Deciding that there must be Honey Nut Cheerios somewhere in the massive cafeteria, I risked my clean clothes by cutting across the flow of traffic in the cafeteria, dodging the food tray wielding zombified essay readers Frogger style. 

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It was all in vain, though, as cereal stations two, three, and four were also bereft of honey nut goodness. Having scored hundreds of essays at this point, I narrowly restrained myself from a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles style rant over the persistent absence of my breakfast cereal of choice:

You can get me some freaking Honey Nut Cheerios. A freaking box, a freaking bowl, a freaking bag, donut shaped freaking oats and honey! I want freaking Honey Nut Cheerios…right…freaking…now.

It was a sad day. How would the bearded professor we met a few years back properly ornament his beard with Cheerios without the adhesive properties of Honey Nut Cheerios?