Out of Bagels

If I were the queen of England (assuming I were female, which I am not), I would get my court magician to make the man on the Quaker Oatmeal box come alive, and I would formally knight him.

Oatmeal is just so awesome. Along with being a great source of food and bedding for mealworms (yes, I raise beetle larvae for entertainment; don't judge me), it also functions amazingly as a breakfast. I shall recite the events of the morn on which I recognized the valiance of oatmeal.

One morning, I wake up, go downstairs, grab the Fiber One box, try pour it into the bowl--and then I realize it: I. Am. Out. Of. Cereal.

The horror! I begin to panic--I need my Fiber One!! I cannot function without it! My mind recedes to its most basic instinctual level. Adrenaline spikes through me. My bare feet are hypersensitive on the cold tile floor. It seems as if cotton has filled my mouth. The low hum of the fridge is like a plane engine running next to my head. I can smell the fresh scent of early morning all the way through the walls. All of the lights seem too bright, the shapes too defined. A coiled spring is what I am, a taught piece of twine, ready to snap, prepared to do anything to survive at a moment's notice.

Then I hear the Fiber One gods call down to me: "Dude. Take a chill pill and use your head. What else is there to eat?"

"THERE'S NOTHING! FIBER ONE IS MY LIFE, THE SOLE DRIVE OF MY EXISTENCE!"

The Fiber One gods shake their heads, sigh, and leave me to endure my misery alone. Then: "Wait..." I think. "It's possible...I might have...a bagel?"

With a renewed sense of purpose and hope, my adrenaline rush fades, and I stride over to the bread box. No bagels. I pull some bread aside. No bagels. I pull more bread aside. No bagels. I pull out everything in the box, search every corner of it for any stragglers, and take inventory of all of its contents.

No bagels.

Damn.

Now I am truly hopeless. No cereal. No bagels. Not even any jam to make some toast. "Woe is me..." I mutter. "Woe is me..." I mutter again, for I like the sound of it.

"Yo...yo, dude...hey, wake up, man!"

Great. Now there are voices in my head.

"Come on, man! Get off the floor and do something about it!" I don't want to make the voice angry, so I do as it says.

"Good job. Now come over to the cabinet...that's right...open it...no no, the other cabinet! Jeez, talking to you is like talking to a blender! They make terrible dinner conversation..."

I find the correct cabinet. I open it. And lo and behold, it is...food.

I stare, unbelieving, at the Quaker Oatmeal box sitting in front of me. As I begin to comprehend the implications of this, tears roll down my face. I slowly collapse to the floor and begin sobbing with happiness. I am not alone.

"Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Now are you going to eat me or not? Come on, dude, scoop out my guts, pour boiling water on them, and shovel them into your pie hole! What are you waiting for? MOVE!"

I find it disturbing that he wants me butcher him and feed on his cooked entrails, but I'm so desperately hungry that I put my concerns around his mental condition aside and do as he says. I'm so engrossed in the deliciousness of his innards that I don't realize until I am finished: he is dying.

"No," I whisper. "No!"

"It's okay, dude...it's my time to go now."

"Why? Why didn't you tell me! I could've found something else to eat! Why did you do this to me??"

"It's because...it's because I care about you, man. I want you to be successful in life. If I have to sacrifice myself to ensure it, then so be it."

"Please! There must be something we can do!"

"There is nothing. This is my fate. It will not be denied."

"Thank..." I choke up for a moment. "Thank you, Mr. Quaker."

"Just call me...Paul. And no. Thank...you."

And so Paul passed into the void.

This is the tale of a brave box of oatmeal that sacrificed itself for my own well-being. That day, despite my grief over his passing, I went on to ace my algebra final. He shall not be forgotten.

On this day, I recall the selfless actions Paul took to better my life, and I am grateful.




Random Factoid O' the Day: There are more atoms in a bucketful of water than there are bucketfuls of water in the Atlantic Ocean.

Why I Talk to Toothbrushes

This afternoon, I impulsively looked up my middle name on Urban Dictionary.

One of the "definitions" said: "A sexy guy that...has a nice toothbrush."

Let's just focus on the latter part for now; I don't want to gloat. :D

Of course it was funny! The randomness of it caught me off guard and I couldn't stop laughing. But I began to think about it more seriously. I decided that my toothbrush really is very nice. This is why.

Tooth brushing is such an important part of daily life. If we don't brush, many problems will arise: we will get tooth decay, repulsive breath, our teeth will lose their whiteness, and many others. A lot of these cost quite a bit to fix. As long as you brush at least twice a day, you'll be able to avoid these things in a very cost-effective way with only a couple minutes of effort.

What if we didn't brush our teeth? They would look disgusting, they would be painful, they would probably eventually fall out, our breath would be horrendous, our sense of taste would be dulled, it could potentially lead to some serious illness...the list goes on. The vast majority of people couldn't afford to constantly visit a dentist for tune-ups and such. Life just wouldn't be very fun.

If toothbrushes are so important, then why are they completely taken for granted? And that is why I extend my gratitude towards toothbrushes. Next time I brush my teeth, I'm going to take a second, look it in the bristles, and say: "Toothbrush, I thank you. I truly do. You do so much for me, and I give so little in return. Yet you are content with that. Well, you are an inanimate object, so there's no way you could complain or even have the desire to complain...Jeez! You're messing up my emotional speech! But anyway. Thank you."

....or something like that.

So next time you go to brush, just take a moment and think about how important they are to you, and how grateful you are that they exist.




Random Factoid O' the Day: Look at the quote I included from Urban Dictionary. See the "dot dot dot" thing? It's called an ellipsis. They're used when you want to omit some words from a quote.