We were in a rush trying to get to the car and head out on our way, when Beth decided to pause, take off her shoe, and dump out the accumulated sand.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t been standing in the middle of our living room at the time.

I’ve decided that it’s not a good idea to take pharmaceutical grade caffeine on a regular basis. However, a single cup of merely mortal coffee isn’t doing the trick either. Enter John’s official “hair-brained scheme of the day.”

The idea goes something like this, Pills deliver too much too quickly and a cup of joe (as brewed by my office mates) delivers too little too slowly. So, I’ll brew my own special blend. However, being a frugal civil servant I don’t want to invest in the kind of capital that self-brewing “right” will require. So, I’ll do a little experimentation on the cheap with “Folger’s Coffee Singles.”

My little false start can be blamed on the marketing folks at Folgers. The color green generally means “go.” It’s the color of springtime, of fresh new beginnings, and of growth. Red on the other hand means “stop.” It’s the color of warning, of danger, and of “turn around and go back.” When I’m tired, or in other words, when I most need coffee as God intended, I gotta go with the green baby. It’s go time. Only, it wasn’t, not with a “green” coffee single. In Folger speak, green means DECAF. You know how I feel about decaf, so I’ll spare you the censored obscenities. Fortunately I noticed my error before I left the house.

Which means I’ve probably used up my quota of good fortune for the week. Good thing it’s Friday.

At work I took my little red packet of magic, read the instructions, then did something else entirely. No, I didn’t rip open the package and swallow the grounds whole. The instructions called for soaking the bag of grounds for fifteen seconds. So, I figured a minute and a half sounded about right.

So far, so good. I’ve never been so fleet of finger on the keys.

Every morning I make oatmeal for myself at work. Every morning I mix the appropriate amount of water and oats and nuke it for 60 seconds. Unlike most mornings, THIS morning the nuker was angry. REALLY angry.

The ‘ole nuker didn’t run for more than the accustomed 60 seconds, that I would have noticed. I always run it on full power, so it couldn’t have been running too strong. I can’t figure it out. Maybe I should explain, my oatmeal exploded.

Oatmeal isn’t normally known for its combustibility. The FBI doesn’t check up on people buying large quantities of Quaker products, though you would have to wonder what anyone would do with a truckload of oatmeal. In fact, oatmeal is probably good for you because it is so bland. So why did I find my boring cup of whole grains coating the inside of the nuker like a Peptol-Bismol commercial?

I come from curious stock, so naturally I had to get down to the bottom of this phenomenon; dubbed “exploding oats.” I tried cooking it too long, with too much water, with too little water, too long with too much water, too long with too little water, but nothing replicated my earlier results.

What I have done is replicate the conditions for the allure of an “intelligent design” like explanation (re: creationism v. evolution). I am therefore confident in concluding that the microwave was angry. When in doubt, take the easy way out.