Two Farmers in Michigan

And the invention that made them rich

The milking of the cows was finished and the women and children went back to the house while the two brothers Farmer K and Farmer P proceeded to feed the cows.

“Cows sure are easy to feed,” said Farmer K to Farmer P. “All ya gotta do is fill the trough with the grains and they immediately come, stick their heads in the trough and start eatin’.”

Without removing the piece of straw from his mouth, Farmer P replied, “You got that right, brother. If only humans were as easy to feed.”

“You know, I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout that. I know humans won’t eat the cow food we feed the cows but what if we came up with some kind of grains that humans will eat in the same way the cows eat their food? Wouldn’t that be an easy and efficient way of feeding humans? If only we could come up with some kind of human trough food.”

Farmer P took the straw out of his mouth, “I like the idea but I don’t think humans would take to eating out of a trough.”

“Yeah, I reckon they could eat the human trough food out of bowls or something. But you get the idea, right? Food that ya don’t gotta cook. You just pour it in a bowl.”

Farmer P put the straw back in his mouth, “Boy howdy, the women would sure love that. Instead of slaving away in the kitchen cookin’ eggs and bacon and sausage and biscuits and gravy and flapjacks and waffles and such all they would have to do is open a big bag of human trough food and pour some into everyone’s bowls. Heck, it would be so easy even the stupidest of husbands and children could prepare their own breakfast. The women won’t have nothin’ to do but washin’ the dishes.”

“Yup, it would be easy, quick and painless. All we gotta do is figure out how to get humans to eat this human trough food. Like I said, I’ve been thinkin’ about it and I think the answer is sugar. Humans will eat anything with sugar in it.”

Just then a couple of cows farted.

Farmer P took the piece of straw out of his mouth and threw it on the ground, “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Yeah, I think sugar will work but another part of the answer is right before us eatin’ and fartin’. The cows. What if we tell people the way to eat human trough food is to pour milk over it? Surely they’ll go for that.”

“Yup, and everything for this meal is right here on the farm. We’ve got the corn fields and wheat fields over yonder to make the human trough food and we got the cows over here for the milk. They only thing we’d need to buy is the sugar. Brother we could get rich.”

Farmer P took a new piece of straw out of the top pocket of his overalls and put it in his mouth, “I think this is a fantastic idea but I see one more problem. Humans are in the habit of eatin’ eggs and such for breakfast. How do we get them to switch to human trough food?”

Farmer K scratched the beard stubble on his chin as the two brothers watched the cows eat. After a long moment of silence he snapped his fingers, “I’ve got it! We spread a nasty rumor that eggs are bad for your health, that they have some ingredient in them that gives people heart attacks or something. And we advertise the human trough food as not only being extremely easy but also extremely healthy. I’ll bet humans will give up eggs in a heartbeat and switch to our human trough food.”

“That’s brilliant,” said Farmer P. “But I still see one problem…”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, the name. We’ve got to come up with a snazzier name than, ‘human trough food.’”

“You’re right about that,” said Farmer K. “We’ll have to think on that. In the meantime what say you and me head up to the farmhouse and get the women to whip us up some omelets?”

The two farmers patted each other on the back and headed for the farmhouse.

And that is how breakfast cereal was invented.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual facts is surely accidental. Stories by White Feather

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