Theresa Lewis

All I ever wanted for breakfast was a bowl of corn flakes. During the summer months when I was a child, we ate cornflakes, but come September and the start of another school year, we were given oatmeal with brown sugar and cream on it. I hated oatmeal. Every day, it was a battle to see if I could keep it down. It was a battle that I never seemed to be able to win.  Every day, I would gag on it and my esophagus would close and refuse to let the stuff go down. By the time I was twelve, I knew I had to find a creative way to dispose of it.

What I hated so much about the oatmeal was that it was either burnt, or lumpy, or  half cooked, or it had bugs in it. Some days, it was all of the above. Whether my mother made it or my older sister made it, it didn’t seem to matter. It was always less than palatable.

One rainy day as I was moaning about having to eat another bowl of oatmeal, I spied an open window in the dining room and I waited until the coast was clear. I knew I would have to be fast. I darted over to the window and dumped the bowl of oatmeal out and then ran back to my place at the table. I heard a shrill scream and I prayed that it wasn’t what I thought it was.

Within moments, my sister came back in the house with fire in her eyes. Even though she had been wearing a plastic raincoat, it didn’t protect her head. She was covered in oatmeal and it had slowly trickled down her neck inside her raincoat.

I tried to intercept her and even promised to make her bed for a month if she didn’t tell on me. Unfortunately, there was no way she could hide the evidence. She was a mess. She had to take a bath to clean herself off and she had to change all her clothes.

I got into a peck of trouble that day. I still hate oatmeal and now, I don’t have to eat it.