Thursday, January 26, 2012

I had to descend at least nine circles before I found closure for my taxes last year, but this year was refreshingly different. There were no circles to negotiate! Not a one. I rounded up all my documentation yesterday evening, tracked down a coupon for TurboTax, and then knocked it out, from login to e-filing, in under 20 minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever submitted anything this early, taxes or otherwise, and honestly it feels a little eerie.

Taxes, however, are the last thing I want to discuss tonight. Instead, I’d like to conclude Food Week by bringing bland, boring oatmeal to the table. There’s history here, if you recall. A gambit gone wrong. The official count was 716 packets when we spoke about the matter last August and now, 18 months later, there are precisely 180 bags of–ugh–Maple & Brown Sugar left. It’s a prodigious number, and thinking about it with any appreciable frequency could drive a man insane.

What is arguably the most important meal of the day becomes an ordeal, some mornings. I think a lot about that night at Target, when I made a poor life decision. I have flashbacks. Flashforwards, too, to the day when I finally crack open the last box. Maybe I never left the Island, if you know what I mean. I’ve found some relief in adding cranberries to the stuff, but even as I type this, I’m not entirely sure whom I’m trying to convince. And that’s precisely why I’m grabbing a sausage, egg, and cheese on a bagel tomorrow morning.