SCARRED BY OATMEAL

 I was scarred as a child.  Several times, but the worst was the oatmeal incident.

Let me explain. I was in middle school, on a week long camp, staying in a cabin with five other girls.  It was torture really.  Except for the nature hikes and the cooking of some of our meals in the great outdoors.  If I remember correctly, it was organized by the school and cost quite a bit of money to sign up for it.  But I guess I thought it would be more fun at the time.  Really, it wasn't that bad.  Just … well… it was the oatmeal.

We had a couple meals that the camp counselors took us out in the woods to cook over an open fire, which was great, especially when we made tacos the one night.  Our counselor, Karen led the pack that night and assigned each one of us a task at preparing the meal.  "Dawn, you chop the lettuce, and Stacy, you prepare the meat, and Steve, you cut the cheese."

A round of murmured giggles ensued.

She didn't get it.

 So she kept saying that, "Steve, you cut the cheese."  After each statement the volume of our giggles became increasingly louder.

She still didn't get it.

Until we finally burst out in full blown laughter did she finally ask, "What?  What is so funny?"

I took us nearly an hour to contain our laughter long enough to spit out the explanation, "You keep saying Steve cut the cheese!"  and more laughter would ensue. On the ground rolling laughter.

"What?  What does that mean?"  Karen asked.

"It means …. (giggle, giggle)  that he ….(giggle)  FARTED!"

The uproarious laughter echoed throughout the forest.

(Middle school humor)











So for the rare exception of cutting the cheese and making tacos, most of the meals were prepared by the kitchen staff in a great big dining hall.  Several mornings we had great breakfasts consisting of eggs and sausage, one day there were pancakes, and one day there even was bacon!  Oh, be still my heart! Then there was Thursday morning breakfast.

I came into the dining hall waiting eagerly for some tasty things to inhale after not eating for 12 hours (another scary part of not being in a place where you can have food anytime you want - I need to eat every few hours, it's my metabolism).  As I walked into the hall and took my seat at the cool kids table (just kidding, I was never the cool kid), I noticed what looked to be a mushy type of rice in the middle of the dining table.  There were bowls of brown sugar, regular sugar, honey and some small glasses of cream.  I turned to the girl beside me and asked, "What is it?"  She answered, "Oh awesome!  It's oatmeal!"  I didn't want to sound stupid so I agreed, "Awesome, oatmeal."  Still not sure what the heck it was or what I should do with it.

I sat there quietly for a moment, adjusting my shirt and napkin, waiting to see what others would do with the rancid looking oatmeal.  They took a bowl, filled it up with the pasty white stuff and proceeded to pour all kinds of crap into it.  Trying to appear like I knew what I was doing, I did the same thing, grabbed a bowl and slowly filled it with the white glop.  I wanted to see if it was edible before I added anything to the mixture, because I felt that adding more stuff would really waste the good stuff - like the sugar.  I have a problem with wasting food.  Probably has something to do with another childhood incident.

Then it happened.  I opened my mouth, placed the spoon with the pasty, white glob of rancid goo on it into my mouth.  As I sat there for  moment, I thought to myself, "I could spit this out across the room and be made fun of for the entire remainder of the week at camp and be the laughing stock in school for the remainder of the year, or I could swallow it and gag til the cows came home."  I chose the latter.  I sacrificed myself.

When I finished washing that crap down with an entire glass of water, I looked around the room for some saving grace - a piece of fruit, a saltine cracker - anything that would curve my hunger pangs and allow me to get the heck of sight of this white glob and sucky oatmeal.  Nothing.  NOTHING!

So to save face, I decided to try what others were doing:  adding stuff to it.  First I tried some milk, that just watered it down and made it appear to be tapioca pudding, which in my opinion is the most disgusting creation known to man.  So I held back another gagging episode and went in for the brown sugar.  And then I added butter, then some honey.  At this point the food in my bowl no longer resembled food, it resembled baby shit.  That was all I could take.  I ran from the room, out the back door and hurled.

And then starved until lunchtime.

So this is why, when I read that oatmeal was excellent for controlling cholesterol, I revisited the notion of eating the crap.

Bob has been eating it for years in his cereal, so we had some in the house.  I have made many a good oatmeal cookie over the years too, so  it's not like I banned oatmeal from the premises in a attempt to remove the permanent scar I incurred on the fateful day back at the camp.

I opened the cupboard, found the oatmeal and read the directions.  Poured some water in the bowl and added the instant oats and nuked it for a minute.  I pulled it out of the microwave and began having flashbacks!  I stood there looking at the glob and light brown goo and started to feel nauseous.  But I braved on.  I took a spoon, closed my eyes, and with all the might I could muster - and with the occasional pause and shake - I put the goo in my mouth.

Suddenly I knew.  That the middle school camp chefs had no idea how to cook oatmeal! I had suffered in that moment from childhood for no reason but probably to the quiet pleasure of the camp counselors watching me barf out the back door. This tasted like warm, wonderful oats!  No more thoughts of baby poop, no more thoughts of upchucking!  I had found something that actually tasted - well -ok. I added a little salt and pepper and some butter and all was well with the world.

Now I think that if everyone could conquer their fears of oatmeal like I did, the world would be freed of all their burdens.