The thing is, these things always seem like such a good idea at the time.

When I was out buying the fixings for the mutant apple crisps I made for our little community's fall harvest supper a while back, Decisions Had To Be Made.

As I stood in front of the oatmeal selections at my grocery store I realized that my option was to buy a smallish box of oatmeal which would have been adequate for my needs or ... OR ... for only about $1 more buy a huge bag of oatmeal. A HUGE bag of oatmeal.

Any thinking person could see that the huge bag of oatmeal was really a bargain. Never mind that I hardly use oatmeal. It Was A Bargain!

So I bought it.

Shut UP. I mean it. Not. A. Word.

The presence of a barely used horse-sized bag of oatmeal in our cupboards had not gone unremarked by the spousal unit. He has taken evil glee in teasing me about the presence of this small mountain of oaty goodness in our lives.

So last night, goaded beyond all reason by his teasing, I huffily announced that we would be having oatmeal for breakfast until we polished off my bargain.

If incredulity was a disease, upon hearing those words the spousal unit would have died instantly.

It's not that we don't like oatmeal. We do. We both come from homes where a steaming bowl of grey glop oatmeal was the standard winter breakfast. It's just that, um, er, ah, oh who am I trying to kid here? ... it's just that we're both too freaking lazy to spend five minutes making oatmeal in the morning.

Neither of us is a morning person. Our standard morning routine is to stumble out of bed, wander around in a half awake daze, make a pot of tea and a few slices of toast and then bury our noses in a magazine until the food and caffeine raise our metabolisms high enough to make us coherent.

Actually that's not quite true.

HE wanders out of bed and accomplishes food preparation. I'm not even up for that much effort. So for me to announce that I was not only going to get up first BUT also prepare something that involved actual measuring and cooking ... well you can well imagine his discombobulation.

Then he saw the possibilities for additional oatmeal-related torment.

The last thing he said to me last night? "Mmmmmm, an oatmeal breakfast."

The first thing he said to me when we woke up? "Woman, where's my oatmeal?"

I know.

I am a SAINT, a SAINT I tell you to put up with this level of mental cruelty.

Grumpily I stumbled downstairs and actually managed to produce a pot of oatmeal of acceptable texture without burning down the house or fusing the gray glop to the bottom of the pot.

The recipe on the side of the bag takes 1 1/2 cups of oatmeal to make a hearty breakfast. The problem is, there are about 821 cups of oatmeal left in that bag.

Oh man.

Anybody got a horse they want to lend me?

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 486.41 miles (782.8 kilometers)

Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers