What do you do when you have only half of what you want? Obviously, you go get the other half, if that half means the difference between life and death or success or failure. Or if the missing half is a shoe and you have to go for a walk, or a mitten and it is cold outside, or you have your book, but not your glasses—you go get the absent half.
But what if you are missing low fat yogurt for your health food store granola? This is my morning predicament. I bought the granola, which I can get only once in a great while because that’s how often I go to the health food store, but I forgot to buy the yogurt that I mix into it. The yogurt makes the dried up oats, tasteless nuts and unidentifiable round reddish things taste good—as though it’s not good for me. It is raining out, I’m in my pajamas, tucked in by the fireplace, reading a book and I don’t want to get dressed and go to the store. I know this is pitiful; I’m pitiful. I can make it more pathetic by telling you that the store is close—just across the street, but still I can’t get far enough away from my pitiful self to go there.
Do I put milk on my granola, eat it plain, or sit and pout and not eat anything? This is one of those things that shouldn’t be a problem with which I have to cope. Actually, this is one of those things that the idea of it shouldn’t even become a thought, much less a problem, but it has; it’s grown into a full-fledged complaint and is now so significant that it is defining my whole day. I’m yogurt-less and I want yogurt, but I don’t want to go get some and I feel so bad for me. I could call my friend and ask her to go get me a container of vanilla yogurt, but she lives six miles from the store and I’ll have to bear the look on her face when she brings it to my door. I wonder if she would be willing to leave it on the porch. Were she agreeable, we could both be spared ‘the look’—her, from giving it and me from getting it. I know what you are thinking: you are thinking I’m self-centered, spoiled and shameless, but it’s not like my friend is lame or sick or anything and she did say once that she would do anything for me. Truth be told, I could have asked her to go to Farmington to get the granola, but I didn’t, so she shouldn’t mind doing this.
Forrest is out earning a living and Holland is at school getting an education, so they are useless. Anyway, leaving the granola in the cupboard uneaten is not acceptable, so I have no choice but to settle for milk. I hate milk. The indulgence of eating my granola with whole milk, not skim, doesn’t even appease me—just so you know. And just so you also know, I’m going to eat two bowls of granola without yogurt because two bowls of self pity is so much tastier than just one.
L.E. Hughes is a columnist, writer and owner of Diamond Corner B&B in Stratton, Maine. She welcomes your thoughts and comments: diamondcorner@adelphia.net. © May 2006, Lew-Ellyn Hughes. All Rights Reserved and Retained by the Author.
