A Breakfast of Convenience

In “Anecdotal Tales”, stories will be told. Some will be fun, some will not. Some will be great, some will be less so. Some stories are true, some are merely possible. This is one of them.

A Breakfast of Convenience

“Expect problems and eat them for breakfast” –Alfred A. Montapert

Charles was not having the easiest of mornings.  The hairball that he stepped in as soon as his feet left the bed had served as warning that nothing would go according to plan.  The blip in the power grid that had knocked out electricity just enough to reset his alarm clock had only added to his turbulent start.  Charles wiped the slippery gunk off his feet.  The sock had been just dirty before, now it acquired a new level of disgustingness.  A slimy residue clung to his skin while his cat looked on without remorse.  Charles needed food.  He would be fed and his anger would be soothed.  Or else.

Charles set foot in his kitchen without turning on the light.  He opened the fridge door and was met by a horrible scene.  The sole bulb in the refrigerator revealed that it was essentially bare.  There were some pads of butter, a jar of mayonnaise, and some sort of dish that had once resembled mashed potatoes in a purer, simply, less mold-encrusted time.  He looked to the freezer above and found only ice, garlic bread, and an ice cream bar.  Charles wanted cereal.  That was all that Charles wanted.  Moldy-potato-garlic-bread wasn’t going to suffice.

He went his cellular phone that he had placed by the front door and checked the clock.  As he had feared, Charles didn’t have time to run to the grocery store.  He knew that his commute was already going to be tight, so grabbing breakfast closer to work wasn’t an option.  Charles hadn’t gone to the bank in a while, so even the idea of using one of the vending machines at work was out of the question.  Charles cursed under his breath as his cat walked between his legs.  Glancing into the fridge, the cat looked to Charles and rubbed its chin against the man’s calves.  The cat could easily be fed with a scoop of cat food.  Charles’ dilemma was going to take a bit more ingenuity.

Determined to win at least one battle, Charles turned on the stove and went to grab some cat food.  Placing a handful of dusty cubes and stars in the metal bowl, Charles left his cat to merrily chew on its breakfast.  He returned to the kitchen and retrieved a bowl from the sink.  He checked the dish for cat hairs or debris, saw none, and placed it on top of the oven.  He removed the lone ice cream bar from the freezer, freed it from its packaging, and put the dairy product in the dish.  Then he reached for a clean bowl from the cupboard and filled it from the nearest cereal box.  Today, Charles was going to have bran flakes for breakfast, custom-made from his limited supplies.

Soon the heat from the oven melted the ice cream bar.  The chocolate shell still had a filmy texture to it, but the vanilla-flavored ingredient became a drippy pool.  Charles snatched the dairy product from the stove and turned off the heat.  He wanted the “milk” to be as cold as possible.  He poured the entire contents of the dish into the bowl with the bran flakes and stirred the concoction.  The chocolate still refused to yield entirely.  Charles dismissed the abstinent element and tried to rationalize its existence.  It seemed as if every other cereal was adding a chocolate-flavored version, why not bran flakes?

Charles went to his living room couch and put the bowl of ice cream-topped cereal on his lap.  Not two seconds later, his cat jumped up on an unoccupied cushion and sniffed at the bowl.  Charles assumed that the feline still craved sustenance, as it always did.  The cat approached merrily, meowed expectantly, and then made advances towards the bowl.  Its tail flicked with anticipation.  Curious, Charles watched as his cat sniffed at the cereal.  Suddenly, the cat hissed, drew back in fear from the bowl, and ran off to the bedroom.  Charles began to wonder if his cat could hack up hairballs of revenge whenever it wanted.

Undeterred by his cat’s reaction, Charles put his spoon to the bowl and pulled out a few drippy flakes.  He looked at the lumpy mess in front of his mouth.  He felt his lip start to curl in revulsion.  Before he could overthink the matter, Charles jammed the spoon into his mouth and swallowed.  His gag reflex kicked in, but Charles fought through it.  The meal wasn’t much better than Charles had believed it would be.  He took the ceramic container and its contents of grossness back to the kitchen.  If he was going to choke this breakfast down, he was going to need help.

He reached inside the cupboard and pulled out a box of granulated sugar.  As he poured a large quantity into the bowl, Charles could only shrug.  If he was going to go down the road of dietary madness, he was going to take it that last mile and then some.

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