James and I are big cereal people. I have always been the type of person who prefers a bowl of cereal over a fancy hot breakfast almost any day. (Except if my mom is cooking, of course.) And ever since college, I have been a cereal mixer. Meaning, I put as many cereals as possible into one bowl and eat it for breakfast (or any meal, for that matter). This habit came about because the cafeteria at UW-Madison had a cereal bar where you could scoop out whatever cereals you wanted into your bowl. Naturally, I scooped out as many different combinations of cereal as I could think of and ate to my heart’s delight. 🙂
Over the years I’ve mastered my cereal mixing. (I know, weird.) I like to start with a base cereal, like bran flakes. (I used to get raisin bran until my nutritionist friend pointed out how much sugar is in raisin bran… more than most ‘sugar’ cereals. Yikes! So she advised I get plain bran flakes and add my own raisins. Smart girl.) Anyway… where was I? Oh yes, I start with a base – my bran… then I build on that with maybe something lighter – like Honey Bunches of Oats, and finish it off with something sweet and flavorful – like Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, perhaps. 🙂 (mmm I’m getting hungry just writing this!)
When I used to do the grocery shopping for us, I’d come home with at least 4-5 different kinds of cereal every time (much to James’ dismay). But then James took over the grocery shopping (awesome), and he started buying only super sugary cereals. I can’t even remember what kinds they were now… but he’d only buy one or two boxes, and inevitably one would be gone within days, and I’d be stuck eating only one kind of cereal, and a sugar cereal at that! (I know!! The horror!!!) And every time I found myself hungry within an hour of eating breakfast. Not cool.
So (apparently) I complained to James about this and told him he needs to buy more bran flakes because I can’t live on sugar cereal alone!! (I know.. this is a serious problem.) So he started buying bran flakes every time he went grocery shopping. Seriously… Another box. Every. Time. But the kicker was, he stopped buying all other cereals too. His explanation for this was that he heard me complain about having too many sugar cereals, so he stopped buying sugar cereals all together. He said, “If you want to get something done right around here, don’t complain, communicate.” (womp womp…)
Which I will definitely remember from now on so we don’t end up in this situation again…
Yes… we have 5 FULL boxes of bran flakes and James didn’t even realize it until I pointed it out to him!
From now on I will never forget… don’t complain, communicate. haha 🙂
