I don't feel like cooking this week; and, adventures with Cheerios

Sometimes I don't. It happens.

What I really should say is that I don't feel like cooking anything NEW this week. I'll make a bunch of the old stand-bys instead, and because I'm sick to fucking death of winter, it'll all be carb-heavy and full of cheese and I'll drink a lot of red wine with it and then bitch at my husband about why he never gets on the treadmill, when really I should be getting on the treadmill my own self.

But I digress.

(I love my husband, even if we both never get on the treadmill.)

So instead I'll tell you about my latest shopping adventures, buying Cheerios.

"What's this about Cheerios? I thought you didn't buy cereal? Didn't you get all up on your high horse about not eating processed food and not spending money on convenience crap, and then you go out and buy Cheerios?"

Why, yes. Yes, that was me. I did get all up on my high horse about not eating cereal. And I fixed filling, cheap, nutritious breakfasts every morning, with homemade steel-cut oatmeal, and blueberry muffins, and poached eggs on quinoa, and all sorts of yummy things.

Which my husband refused to eat.

Well, I shouldn't say "refused." I should say, "he took it to work, buried it in the work refrigerator, forgot about it for a month, then brought home 49 Tupperware containers all at once and explained that he didn't like oatmeal."

When I asked why I hadn't been made aware of this information before I actually, you know, MADE the oatmeal, he would only say that he "grew up eating cereal" and "never got in the habit of oatmeal" and "what was wrong with Cheerios anyway, dammit?"

So mothers, let this be a lesson to you. You feed your kids crap, they grow up wanting crap. Then they ask for by name at age 42. It's a marketer's wet dream.

So, fine. I'd rather he eat Cheerios than nothing at all. (At least it's Cheerios, and not Lucky Charms or something.)

Of course, hearing that, he ran right out and spent $4.59 on a box of Cheerios without even thinking. Without even looking for a sale, or saying, "Let's go to Costco and buy some in bulk." Sigh. I could see I was going to have to take this cereal thing under my wing.

So I watched the sale flyers for a couple of weeks, and sure enough, one of the local supermarket chains announced a 4-for-$10 Cheerios sale.

Then I Googled "Cheerios coupons" and printed out a bunch. 75 cents off and $1 off 2 boxes, in multiples.

I took those to the store and used them to buy 4 boxes. The store gave me a register coupon afterwards, for $2 off 5 boxes.

So I printed off some more of those coupons.

And went back and bought 5 more boxes.

So then I had laid in a stockpile of 9 boxes of Cheerios, for a grand total of $1.20 each.

Not bad, huh?

I'll do the same again the next time there's a sale.

Now, of course, my husband thinks we have Cheerios for snack food, and he can eat nothing but Cheerios all day long and we'll never run out, because "we have all these boxes!"

So I had to institute a "Cheerios for breakfast only" rule.

(True story: one Saturday, I caught him eating a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, lunch, and then for dinner. I finally put my foot down and said, "Stop eating Cheerios! You've been eating Cheerios ALL DAY!" "I have not!" he replied. "I haven't seen you eat one single thing today that wasn't Cheerios," I said. To which he replied, "Okay, but that's not the same thing as eating Cheerios all day.")

My secret plan is to save a couple of the Cheerios boxes, and place $1 generic-brand bags of Toasty-Os or whatever inside the Cheerios box. I bet he'll never know the difference.