I normally make breakfast for the family in the morning. It’s not *quite* like how Jan “makes” breakfast on The Office, but it’s close. I mix up some cereal and fruit for the baby, and I cook oatmeal or a bagel for the husband and myself.

This morning, Josh took care of breakfast. Errr, well, he tried.

Our breakfast ingredients stay on our kitchen counter at all times because, well, we use them every morning, and it’s just easier that way. I have a canister of rolled oats with a measuring cup in it (1/2 cup, because 1/2 cup = 1 serving), a container of honey, a bag of raisins, and a bottle of cinnamon all lined up and ready to be used. While I have the measurements of oats to water memorized (1/2 cup oats to 3/4 cup water if only one of us is eating or 1 cup oats to 1 3/4 cups water if we’re both eating), they’re also listed on the canister for easy reference.

Making oatmeal is pretty easy… You decide how many servings you want to make, put the appropriate amount of water in a pot, cover it and bring it to a boil. Then you add the appropriate amount of oats, lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. At that point you just need to take the pot off the heat, cover it, and let it stand for 2 minutes. Then it’s ready to serve. Simple. (And yes, I did that all from memory… my mind is “like a steel trap.”*)

My husband screwed up the oatmeal. And sadly, this isn’t the first time he’s done this. Today he only put in one scoop of oats and didn’t realize it until the 5 minutes of cook time were just about over.

At that point, all he could do was throw the oatmeal away and start over.

Do all men do this? Take a relatively SIMPLE task and make it hard/screw it up just so us women folk won’t ask them to do it any more? By the time breakfast was finally ready, Jude was melting down and wanting OUT of his high chair. I had to inhale my oatmeal and haul him and myself upstairs to nurse him down for a nap.

And the kicker is, I didn’t even ask Josh to make breakfast! I came downstairs and he had already started. I told him I would take care of it, but he insisted that he do it. I think it was all a part of his “now she’ll never ask me to make breakfast again” scheme.

Or maybe he was just trying to be nice and give me a break from the breakfast-making.

*Bonus points if you can tell me where that quote is from. If you know me IRL even a little bit, you’ll get it right on your first guess.