At my neighborhood grocery, they know about easing the pains of recessionary economy. They also, apparently, have distribution contacts in Israel.

Buyer for Denny’s: Ahmed, the people of Flint are very hard hit by the turndown, how can you help us out?

Ahmed, Israeli Monday cereal distributor: Monday Cookies?

Hub brought this most excellent box of cereal home the other night, absolutely beaming with pride. This is something we occasionally have done in the past; buying groceries and cereal in particular, for the sheer entertainment value of the packaging. Once we drove up to Canada during the Winter Olympics to collect cereal boxes adorned with the faces of NHL players who were representing Canada in the games. Shanahan Crunch, Yzerman O’s, Messier Munchies- oh, and did you know that in Canada, milk comes in a bag? Yeah, so we bought some of that too, obviously. We also have a two box set of Gordie Howe cereal, with a full color rendering of the old Olympia, where the Red Wings played back before there were helmets, or instant cereals, for that matter.

Denny’s brings us a lot of joy, actually. I never shop there, but occasionally go in just to see what they are up to. They take lowering overheard to amazingly pride-less extremes. You can buy black bananas there, 8 cents a lb, if you are willing to cut a swath through the fruit flies to get to them. Denny is the master of selling the outdated gems of world, things that are so old that by law they cannot be sold to the public in their original packaging, and so have been stripped of their labels to avoid litigation. There will be a pyramid of brownish yellow saucy something in bottles, accompanied by a scrap of the original shipping carton and a sign that trumpets “Sweet and Spicy Mustard!!!- Outdated, But still GOOD!” Every sign in Denny’s has been amended with the “outdated, but still GOOD!” mantra, and the phrase itself has wormed its way into the daily language of my family.

Me: “Sammy, why didn’t you FLUSH?”
5 year old son: “Outdated, but still GOOD!”

Want some outdated, but still good milk? Check the freezer! It’s next to outdated, but still good frozen sandwich ham.

Oh. Snap.I just let Sammy eat a fist full of Monday Cookie, assuming (for some reason) that the Hebrew (and Kosher!) cereal was quirky only in its twisted blend of chocolate chip ethnic-ness. But is it still GOOD?

Oh, crap!