As with many things I do, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

On a grocery store trip a long time ago, my wife brought home an apple-flavored trail mix, granola sort of thing from the bulk food aisle. Since I always think I have the discipline to improve myself, I took a liking to the mixture.

I never completely got hooked, however, so only had the mix periodically. From time to time, I would buy a bag of it for my snack drawer at work, only to get disappointed when I ran out.

When I remembered to get some of this treat sometime last spring, I made sure I wouldn’t run out too soon and bought a large amount. When I got home, I chose a container which could keep all of it so I could simply get small amounts to take to work in order to better ration my supply.

This is probably where I should mention that I don’t always do well with the follow through on things, especially when I don’t have a constant reminder. Since I bought a large bag of the snack on my own and put it in a container that usually sat inside a cupboard, I should have known things would end badly.

That did happen, but I found a silver lining in messing this up. I got a chance to make my wife to ever-so-briefly see my side of things on another issue.

A couple of months ago, Maria went to make pasta salad for an event we planned to attend. For some reason – probably my laziness for not doing the dishes in a timely manner – she ended up using a different pot than she usually did for the noodles.

She had trouble using the lid of this particular pot as she drained the water from the pot. That meant she had to go digging through our cupboards for a colander for the task.

This made me puff out my chest because, in the past, Maria expressed amazement that I wanted to use a colander when I cooked pasta. She expected me to have the dexterity and attention to detail needed to simply hold the lid of the pot at the correct angle to drain water from the pot after cooking.

I have kind of adapted to that, but mainly because it’s a pain in the butt to go find the colander and know that I’m being judged. Plus, I’m not usually allowed to cook much anymore, which is a good thing.

So even though she did it almost under protest, I felt proud that my wife had to use the colander that afternoon. Unfortunately, when she looked for it, she also found the large container filled with apple-flavored trail mix which was, conservatively, four or five months old.

In my world, I’m happy to take the little victories even if they only last for a few moments. I’m just disappointed I couldn’t celebrate with a snack of trail mix.