NPR and Chocolate Chips

I was listening to NPR this evening. Not really because I'm interested in the current happenings of the world, I rely on Yahoo news for that. Seriously, NPR was discussing the recent Hudson river airplane crash (I bet seat belts made a big difference, by the way) and lo and behold it was on the front page of Yahoo news, with pictures and everything. Who says Yahoo isn't a reliable source of news?

So, maybe I wasn't itching for the news, but I was listening mainly for nostalgia's sake. My entire growing up life I remember waking to the "morning edition" music. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da! For those of you not familiar with the morning edition music tune, then all of those da's were completely random and useless. If you are familiar then please sing along. I know I did. I also remember listening to morning edition while eating a bowl of oatmeal. Not the pansy kind of cinnamon, spice, sugary oatmeal, but the real deal. The bland, tasteless real deal. Which is why my dad would let us stir in chocolate chips. FIFTEEN to be exact. Really, really exact. My dad was a wise man. He quickly learned children can spot a miscount in chocolate chips very quickly. Vitamins, no. Peas? Hardly! But if one sibling gets even ONE extra chocolate chip the offending parent will very quickly hear about it. So we each got FIFTEEN, our eagle eyes made sure of it.

While waiting for the oatmeal to come to its fruition we would line our chocolate chips like little teardrop soldiers around the edges of our bowls. Of course my brothers would make wailing cries of the fallen as they snipped each chocolate man into the boiling sludge. I wanted to be like my brothers very badly, but somehow my chocolate chips always seemed to make pretty melting chocolate patterns on the top of my oatmeal. Funny how listening to NPR can trigger childhood memories. And now I'm sorta craving some oatmeal. The REAL kind, with exactly FIFTEEN chocolate chips.