Cheerio Glue

Have you ever stubbed your toe on a Cheerio…sounds like a title to a Ray Stevens song. But seriously, I have and it hurt. (BTW, if Ray Stevens is reading this, I’ll cut you a deal on the title and maybe even throw in some extra lyrics…let’s talk…)

Who knew that Cheerios mixed with milk, plus the added element of toddler, could make a mortar-like substance that once it adheres to your floor is almost impossible to remove.

I discovered the adhesive power of Cheerios after my toddler adopted a rather unusual way of eating her cereal. She drank all the milk out of her bowl, then grabbed a fist-full of Cheerios and ate it corncob style out of her hand—insert voracious animal noises and you get the gist.

I’m not sure what she was playing at, but her pleasure was my pain. Cereal rings went flying everywhere in a soppy plop and stuck to the floor within seconds of impact. My kitchen floor was a scene of sodden-oat-ring carnage.  

Now a warning to the wise: Don’t use your big toe to remove dampened Cheerios from the floor. It hurts. The Cheerio has by then adhered to the floor and is stuck fast. You may as well kick a brick wall.

The only way to remove a milk-sodden Cheerio from your floor is by scraping it with a hard, sturdy object. As I was wincing from the impact of toe to Cheerio, I grabbed the first hard object I saw: the discarded carton of my husband’s Ipod Nano. It made a most effective Cheerio scraper. (If anyone from Apple reads this and wants to market the Nano case in such a fashion, I’d like a 50 percent cut.)

Had I not been so angrily focused on removing the offending Cheerio, I might have had wits enough to lawyer up. I could have sued the maker of the cereal for not having a warning label that tells of the danger a wet Cheerio can inflict, and even recouped expenses for the medical attention my toe will inevitably require after such extensive injuries, not to mention all the therapy I might need, and the psychological distress that a good toe-stubbing can cause. But I digress…

Once I’d extricated the Cheerio from the floor I wanted to do a touchdown dance, but with several more Cheerios still stuck, that may have proved treacherous to the rest of my unmutilated toes, so I just cackled in triumph and tossed it gleefully into the trash.

I’d like to think there’s a moral to the story, but there really isn’t. Just a tip…don’t underestimate the strength of a stuck Cheerio and if you ever run out of super glue or need industrial strength adhesive, a little milk, a few Cheerios and voila! (If anyone from General Mills is reading this and wants to market a Cheerios-based glue, I’d like 70 percent of the profits…plus my dignity back.)