Yesterday, while I was blissfully devouring my home fries dripping with Heinz ketchup, my husband decided to stage a pop quiz. “Which way is north right now?” he asked, leaning across the table like he was hosting Jeopardy: Marital Edition.

Reader, I nearly choked on a potato.

Let’s set the record straight: I can get where I’m going. I don’t wander aimlessly. I use landmarks, I follow GPS, and I arrive right on time. Early, usually. But if you ask me, at any random moment, to point to north, south, east, or west? My brain shuts down faster than a dial-up modem.

I don’t get lost usually. I just can’t match the words “north,” “south,” “east,” or “west” to the real-life street in front of me. I know what they mean on a map, but my brain refuses to overlay them on reality, like there’s a layer of static between my eyes and the compass rose.

This led to my husband’s recent brunchtime sport: asking me to identify cardinal directions. After his latest pop quiz, I told him fair’s fair, that if he was going to test me on that, I was going to quiz him on something I find second nature. He smirked and said, “Bring it.”

But, dear reader, I couldn’t think of anything comparable. What could I ask him that would scramble his brain the way directions do mine? Matching colors to the right shade names? Picking out a Brontë sister from a lineup? (If we had a photo, that would help. As it is, aren’t we just kinda guessing who is whom in those awful paintings we do have?)

The most infuriating part of this for me is that it feels like there’s an assumption among the public that men are supposed to be better at directions than women. And when I flounder at a question like “which way is east?” I feel like I’m reinforcing some old stereotype I desperately want to shatter.

Like the time one of my husband’s fellow band members was passing a cigar around and teasingly asked me if I wanted it, because since I was a woman, of course I wouldn’t, I suppose. I don’t smoke and had never tried a cigar in my life, but I grabbed it and even attempted a smoke ring.

Apparently I was so convincing that he asked me another time if I wanted to “Go burn one” with him. “I don’t smoke,” I said. He was speechless. Kinda the way my husband was when he saw me with the cigar.

Hey, I was representing. And it smelled nice, anyway; I like a good pipe tobacco scent, too.

But here’s what I told my husband at brunch yesterday, and what I know with every fiber of my being: I can’t learn directions. I have tried, and I am convinced that my brain simply wasn’t built to translate cardinal directions. And that’s okay. I’m still perfectly able to get where I need to go.

Like I said, landmarks and GPS. Done and done.

Before you ask, yes, Word Raccoon was present during brunch, and she made plenty of sassy remarks and was gasp laughing at herself when she actually did try to guess and gave apparently very inaccurate responses for hilarious reasons.

Breakfast Handled: Vague Recipes Edition

Word Raccoon decided to make overnight oats for breakfast for today and tomorrow. IDK why that seemed so important to her, but fine. She said you might like the “recipe” if you don’t have it.

(This is a selection from our Vague Recipes collection. What’s next, WR, How to make ice cubes three ways? Sigh.)

Overnight oats practically make themselves and hey, if you’re like me and your mornings way too often start off with frantic pep talks to your writing raccoon, urging her off the ceiling fan and into street clothes as many days as I do and you feel like a 12-year-old if you eat cereal too many days in a row, this is a good alternative.

Sometimes she insists I tell her if anyone interesting is going to be there first before she puts on shoes and I tell her that everyone is interesting in their own way and that she’s narrow minded if she thinks otherwise and also, though Wordsworth uses the word interesting, we do not.

Here, WR, are better words. And please get in your time machine and bring them to our buddy Wordsworth! Intriguing, articulate, sensitive, complex, magnetic, clever, gentle, haunted, disarming, restless. All better choices! (No, we are not going to list negative adjectives. Anyone could be cranky before they’ve had their coffee.)

At any rate, overnight oats are easy, endlessly customizable, and make you feel like the kind of person who actually has their shit together for those days when you don’t want to outsource breakfast.

You can pretty much put whatever you like in overnight oats. Craving blueberries? Throw them in. Got leftover apple slices? Dice them up. A swirl of almond butter, a handful of chocolate chips…go nuts.

You can add the toppings at night or in the morning. Obv. If you add them at night, they will be softer in the morning. That’s not really a good thing, is it?

If you haven’t tried chia seeds in your oats, when they meet liquid, they swell up and turn your oats extra creamy and they add fiber, protein, and healthy fat. So go ahead, try them. But bury them in flavor because otherwise…

As far as your oats go, any container with a lid will work. I confess, I have a cool container with a built-in spoon. Choose the whimsical option whenever possible, I say. A tiny spoon is always whimsical. (Whimsy is having a moment, or so says Gretchen Rubin!)

But if you want to feel resourceful and sustainable, save your Tostitos salsa jars and repurpose them for your overnight oats. Bonus: if you ever get tired of washing them, you can recycle or toss them guilt-free.

 Basic Overnight Oats Recipe

• ½ cup rolled oats
• ½ cup milk (I use almond milk)
• ½ cup Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp chia seeds (optional, but I recommend it because it’s good for you)
• Sweetener if you like (honey, stevia)
• Fruit, nuts, or spices as desired

Combine everything in your jar, stir well, refrigerate overnight or at least 4 hours, and enjoy!

Anyway, WR is over here with a pen in her mouth. I guess that’s my cue.