out for breakfast

When the after school planets and schedules align just so, I end up waiting for a bus from the primary school to discharge a dozen or so little bitty kids to parents who seem to carpool down to the main road from the far cul de sacs of their subdivision. As one who parents only a ten year old who looks twelve, those children seem impossibly small to me, though I realize they're quite capable of big and even conniving thoughts. Like, "How do I make sure to get that blue button--the winning one--and not the white, and not let a tiny detail like the fact that I don't like to eat breakfast stand in the way?" At least that's what my first grade mind was thinking, once upon a time.

I do not remember how the Astronaut Game was played, only that eating what seemed like vast quantities of breakfast foods (and I'm guessing Kellogg's) was essential for success. I do remember scoffing at my friend Lisa, who dutifully reported the brownie that she ate before school while the Zinger that I had after picking at my more nutritious, reportable breakfast was consumed, shall we say, under the table. Given that I was seven, my mother must have played a role in that week-long subterfuge, and while I'm not proud of my first attempt at gamesmanship, I do still have that pin.

Breakfast and I maintained our adversarial relationship for years; maybe I was just working off the guilt. At some point I got over it, though, and now I love to go out for breakfast or cook it here or a late, lazy Saturday, though I do, now and forever, draw the line at ever even sampling one of my mother-in-law's sausage balls. I mean, really. Even if she could cook or if I liked sausage, that just sounds wrong. It was even breakfast that was the one bright spot during our year in "hell or Indianpolis," as we discovered The Original Pancake House there. And now, praise baby Jesus, they're opening one here. Or, given urban sprawl, within 45 minutes of so of my front door, maybe an hour. A miniature road trip. But given that we've timed our drives through Minneapolis and Birmingham just to make sure we got some, and tried to track one down in San Diego, that's nothing, or at least not too much, at least once in a very great while. Given all the time I spend in the car, it does seem kind of silly. I mean, I'm sure I make banana pancakes that are as good or nearly, but breakfast competition? Perhaps I shouldn't go there. Then again, is there a prize?