Sunday, April 5, 2009

How much sugar is enough?

Starbucks is a regular and necessary stop for me on Sunday mornings. This isn't because of the coffee, although that's a part of the process. It's because of the availability of the Sunday New York Times which gets me through the first two working hours of the day and provides the intellectual stimulation missing from a quick gutting of the Sunday Oregonian of its advertising followed by a review of the remaining 10 minutes of news. This morning, there were no copies of the Times available. In an effort to make myself feel better about settling for the Oregonian, I ordered the "Perfect Oatmeal" without high expectations. It was not perfect but the real entertainment came with a bag of "toppings" which were supposed to put the cherry on the top of my watery oatmeal experience. The goodies included a bag of mixed, chopped nuts . . . a bag of dried cranberries and a packet of "Perfect Oatmeal Brown Sugar." The packet bragged that it was, "generously portioned to suit your taste" which I took to mean that no matter how greedy you were for brown sugar, there would be enough to satisfy even the biggest pig on the planet. What did this mean? Was it an insult? A brag? I dumped the entire packet into the paper bowl with the nuts and cranberries and it did improve the basic product to the point that, while not perfect, it was an acceptable meal to accompany a poor second to the Times.

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