The Rebrand Consultant
What do you do when your Rice Krispies won't sell?
Hello, everyone. Just a heads up that I'll be sending out two stories this week, one now and one on Tuesday, Earth Day. I’m part of a Substack project where a group of people will all be posting climate fiction type stuff on Earth Day. Until then, maybe you’ll enjoy the really dumb story below. Thanks!
The Rebrand Consultant
My mother has the rebrand consultant coming over and she’s all in a state.
She’ll be here at noon! she tells me.
She’s got a feather duster masking-taped to a soup ladle, and she’s perched on the couch arm, standing on tip toe, batting wildly at a cobweb up near the ceiling. She’s not even close—that cobweb is perfectly safe. My mother is four foot seven.
She climbs down from the couch arm and gives me her usual desultory hug, her left ear against my gold belt buckle. Goddamn spiders, she says. Why are spiders always on the ceiling? What’s so great about the ceiling?
We go into the kitchen, where my mother puts the water to boil. My mother’s not anything until her fifth cup of coffee.
As she’s getting out mugs, chipped and saying things like Raytheon Corp, Szxmeklc Family Picnic, and Vote for Taft, she’s telling me about the rebrand consultant.
She met the rebrand consultant at Sam’s Club, she says. The rebrand consultant, says my mother, wanted a pallet, a whole g-d pallet, of Cheez-its. The Sam’s Club people were telling her she couldn’t have a whole pallet of Cheez-its. They just weren’t equipped, said the Sam’s Club people, says my mother, to sell a whole pallet of Cheez-its. No one could have a whole pallet of Cheez-its, not even the president, not the president of Cheez-its, not even that girl with dark hair that sells you Progressive insurance, if she for some reason wanted a whole pallet of Cheez-its, she couldn’t have one, not a whole pallet, they say, the Sam’s Club people, they just weren’t equipped. And oh boy, says my mother, oh wow, says my mother, the rebrand consultant was livid.
The rebrand consultant, says my mother, she had her credit card… poised? poised…? yeah poised, between her fingers, you know, like some kind of tropical knife? says my mother.
Tropical knife? I say to my mother.
Yeah. Tropical knife.
What the hell’s a tropical knife?
So, says my mother, she’s got her credit card between her fingers, the rebrand consultant does, like a… like a South Belize princess, and she’s swinging wildly with her credit card. Just wildly swinging—dangerous—saying that if she can’t have a whole pallet of Cheez-its, she’s going to get desperate. Somebody’s going to get hurt.
This is at the Sam’s Club? I ask.
My mother rolls her eyes up at me. She has to roll her eyes up at me. She’s four foot seven.
Didn’t I say Sam’s Club? she says.
Yes, mother, I say, you said Sam’s Club.
My mother’s water is ready, so she fills her mug right to the top. She gets the Folgers from out of the cupboard and spoons in six heaping teaspoons. Then she pours half down the sink and fills the mug back up with some milk.
So, finally, they say, the Sam’s Club people say, she says, blowing at her cup of instant coffee and milk, like it’s too hot and not almost refrigerator cold, Ok, ok, you can have your pallet of Cheez-its, just put down the card! Put down the card and give us the card! Pay for your Cheez-its and go!
My mother gulps down her coffee and milk in three swigs. So, there you have it, she says.
Have what? I say.
The rebrand consultant! She’ll be here at noon.
I look out the window at the front yard. Someone’s left one of those Ol’ Timey Player Piano Joe bikes on the lawn, the ones with the unbelievable front wheel, big as the world. It’s completely rusty, jagged and broken bits sticking out, and there are oversized playing cards in the spokes.
Mother, why is there an old-fash—
Do you remember the Rice Krispies? she says.
Rice Krispies? Do I remem—
Remember when they had those little boys on the box? Like, the cartoon of those three little boys?
I scratch at my nose. Elves? You mean elves?
And then, she says, they changed out those three little boys. They put like a man reading a book instead, sitting in an expensive leather chair, with like a really expensive, soft-looking dog, and the two of them are in a really expensive looking room, with maybe a stuffed fish on the wall, there on the box?
Mmm, I don’t think—
Rebrand consultant.
What?
Rebrand consultant!
I scratch at my nose.
Don’t be so naïve, says my mother. Everyone needs a rebrand consultant.
