This is not a good day.
It all began this morning when, at 8:45am, I was rudely awakened by the sounds of a lawnmower outside my bedroom window. This was quickly followed by loud and boisterous conversations held by the people doing the yard work in the back of my apartment building. This all wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that my backyard is a parking lot and the grass they were so diligently mowing was only eight feet square. Of course, when they were done mowing they had to break out the big, obnoxiously loud, hot air blower.
And the hedge trimmer. We must not forget the horrid hedge trimmer.
After numerous attempts to ignore the noise and recapture my quickly evaporating dream of decadent sexual fulfillment, I decided to get up and eat some breakfast. As I walked from my bedroom to the kitchen I somehow managed to stub my toe, knock my elbow right in the funny bone and then, as I was trying to rub both my elbow and my toe at the same time while walking to the kitchen, I hit my head on a doorknob.
Oh sure, it sounds funny now…
After cursing the door, myself and the world in general, I managed to make it to the kitchen without further incident. Once there, I decided to have some Frosted Flakes for breakfast and got a bowl from the cupboard and the milk out of the fridge. It was at this point that my world came crashing down around my ears as the universe pointed its immensely huge, yet somehow stubby, finger at me and laughed.
You see, I began pouring the milk into the bowl before putting in the cereal.
As any cereal connoisseur can attest, pouring milk into the bowl first is completely against the natural order of things. It’s like trying to put on your socks before putting on your underwear, it simply isn’t done in polite society. For some unfathomable reason however, I didn’t notice until I began pouring the cereal into the bowl and perhaps four flakes made it in and the rest spilled over onto the counter. It was at that point that I should have just cursed the heavens above, poured the whole mess down the toilet and gone back to bed until Saturday. But no, shrugging to myself in a martyr-like fashion I decided to sweep the cereal into the bowl, pushing the flakes down with the back of my spoon as necessary, and eat my breakfast. I know it was against the rules, and I knew I was defying nature, but I figured cereal is cereal and anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?
And so, now I’ve got a cut on my tongue.
I take my cereal seriously, too. Once, as someone’s houseguest, I was the first to awaken, and helped myself to breakfast, as I’d been cheerfully told to do. I found some Special K, put it in the bowl, spooned what I *thought* was sugar (it was in a SUGAR BOWL, for cry Pete) onto it, poured the milk in, and took a spoonful. It was salt. What’s wrong with some people, anyway?
I’m sorry your day was so bad – but does it make you feel better if I say you helped brighten mine?
Your willingness to chart new territory will help future generations. There should be a warning along side the cereal box that says “WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that pouring cereal into your bowl after the milk will lead to a desperate need to go back to bed.”