The Significance of Breakfast Bowls

Of all the things people have to worry about these days, you would think breakfast bowls would not be that important. But when breakfast bowls break, their significance rises proportionately with the decreasing number.

My son is going through a phase where he breaks things. I know. When I was 16, I broke a few things myself. All sorts of things. Cereal bowls were not excluded.

My wife and I used to have 12 bowls that looked exactly the same. We're down to five, maybe six bowls, including the chipped one we use to feed Lilly, the littlest of the fuzzy, black dogs.

We store the bowls in three somewhat even, symmetrical stacks in the open cabinet above the stove. Twelve bowls divided by three stacks equals four per stack. Simplicity at its finest.

My wife recently replaced some of the broken ones with four new ones. Luckily, the bowls she got are all the same pattern, which helps with equilibrium, synchronicity and symmetry.

However, the badly needed new ones are wider and, therefore, will go below tho originals. Also, there are four of them to go into three stacks. Potentially problematic.

My wife's mother, who was unaware of our purchase, also purchased some nice bowls as a gift for us to replace some of the broken ones. While much appreciated, this has thrown my bowl system into some serious disarray.

These new bowls are the same size, but deeper. Also, they comprise of, again, four bowls -- two solid green, two solid red. While the colors do match the original bowls, once again we have four new bowls and three stacks.

Now we have approximately 15 bowls and three different sizes of bowls. Of these, we have two different patterns and one solid set. And the solid set is two different colors. And yet we still have just three stacks! My symmetry has been torn asunder!

Thank goodness I'm not OCD, or anything like that. Otherwise, this whole breakfast bowl fiasco could send me into a serious mental state.