I Cannot Buy Oatmeal

I go to the grocery store. I’m getting food for the week. There’s so much food at the grocery store. Almost too much.

I walk down an aisle to get oatmeal. The sign hanging from the ceiling says I can find cereal, hot breakfast, convenient breakfast, and meal replacement drinks.

After passing boxes and boxes and boxes of cereal that all can be broken down into two categories — things you should and should not have for breakfast — I find oatmeal.

There are name brands. Quaker, McCann’s, Kodiak, Bob’s. It’s all oatmeal. I don’t like to eat it. I eat it because the doctor says it’s good for me. The generic brands are even less memorable.

Too much oatmeal. Too many brands. Too much noise. Bright graphics, aggressively nice and quaint. Packaging is either a circle or square. McCann’s comes in a metal tin.

I stare. The first wave of nausea whispers to me. All the other food does not matter now.

All I want is oatmeal now. There is too much. I cannot get the oatmeal.

I sigh. I leave. I get in my car. I drive through the rain.

There is too much. All the time. Everywhere. Never-ending. Too much.