My go-to breakfast is a little microwave oatmeal package. You dump it in a bowl, add water and cook for a minute. Mo buys them for me because she loves me and doesn’t want me to starve. Mine is a frenzied life, full of watching the afternoon espn talk shows and desperately trying to keep the cat from stealing my chair. I just don’t have a lot of time for preparing this stuff. One minute is about it.

Today I discovered that Mo doesn’t love me and wants me to starve. We’re out of them. What to do?

We have the big round thing of one-minute oatmeal with the picture of the hippie dude on it. I’m guessing it takes a long time to make, but I have about 36 hours to kill, so I figure what the heck. I will give it a try.

I pull out the measuring cups (yes, I have a book that explains how to use them) and measure half a cup of oats. I measure one cup of water (which, according to the book, is two half-cups. who knew?). Then I look at the instructions on how to cook them.

“Put in microwave for one minute.”

ONE MINUTE? IT ONLY TAKES ONE MINUTE TO COOK FROM SCRATCH? WHY THE HELL HAVE I BEEN BUYING THOSE STUPID PACKAGES FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS???”

One minute later, I’m enjoying a lovely bowl of oatmeal. Somehow it just takes a little better when you know it’s completely homemade.

I think the One-Minute Oats guys are missing a bet by not advertising  that this stuff only takes one minute to cook.

Now if I could only figure out how long I need to cook these no-bake cookies …