I turned 66 this year. I never expected to live this long, but it’s been a good ride. Until the damned COVID, things just kept getting better and better.
Much to my surprise.
Dating is one of the things that is so much better now than it was when I was an angst-ridden young adult.
I went on my first date at the age of 13. I can’t imagine what my parents were thinking. I was married for 19 years and change. Do the math – that’s 34 years I’ve spent dating. A lot of different guys. And a lot of them were just plain old, um, different. I think I married the first guy I felt like didn’t need therapy. That turned out not to be quite true – he just hid it well.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore men. I really do, but I’m here to talk about my worst first date. It would have been about 1981. I was 22, a disco queen, young and attractive.
No, really. I was. When you get to be my age, you will look back and realize there is a beauty to youth. I think that’s why so many people fight aging.
National Pancake Day was yesterday. As usual, I’m a day late and a dollar short. Nevermind that I had a pecan waffle with extra pecans sans syrup at the Waffle House this morning.
Still and all, I offer you this, my homage to maple syrup (and to pancakes though indirectly.)
As a child, I did not like pancake syrup though I loved the shape of the Aunt Jemima glass bottle. Everyone thought I was weird, but I much preferred my pancakes and French toast with tons of butter. Dripping with butter. Drowning in it. Floating.
Some time during my misspent early adulthood, I did not mark the day in my calendar of things to remember, I was unceremoniously given pancakes with syrup already applied. Not wanting to be one of those people, I unenthusiastically loaded a forkful and put it in my mouth.
Oh my. All the pleasure pheromones and chemicals and other assorted signals lit up like a Christmas tree at the North Pole and I smiled big and broad.
Real maple syrup tapped from trees is one of God’s gifts
Pancakes or waffles, you ask? Well. I’m actually a French toast kind of chick if I’m going to be that carb indulgent. Normally, my breakfast of choice is potatoes, sausage, two eggs over easy, wheat toast well done and well buttered. That’s my mainstay.
But there are mornings—or evenings more likely—when a warm breakfast bread calls to me.
I once had a vintage waffle iron I bought at the Goodwill for $2. I was excited to have it. I brought it home, plugged it in to see if it worked and told my five-year-old son not to touch it. What did he do? He touched it. Nearly 2nd degree burns on his little hand. I learned real fast why it was at the Goodwill. It was not safe. The whole thing got hot. Scorching hot. 2nd degree burns hot. I did the world a favor and threw that sucker away.
I did eventually get a new waffle iron. Hated it too. By the time you got the waffles from the iron to the table, the butter wouldn’t melt, they were so cold. And that is mostly my experience with waffles. You can’t keep them hot. And there is no point in a waffle or a pancake or even French Toast if it’s not hot and swimming in melted butter. Lots of butter. Real butter. Good real butter. Like a nice Danish butter from the Gucci Kroger cheese case.
So, we went back to pancakes. I like pancakes. Tons of butter and sometimes, certainly not always, a bit of maple syrup. Real maple syrup. Not that fake stuff. Ooooo ick. No. Never that. Never. But I seldom order them and even less often make them at home. Just not big on the pancakes.
But the French toast, you might ask? Well. There’s a problem with French toast. I like it one of two ways. Made with that dirt cheap white bread you can buy at any Dollar General or French toast, Pan Perdue, made with my homemade bread. The problem is I seldom have either when a French toast urge comes upon me. So, it’s a once or twice a year thing unless I’m out somewhere, but they rather bug me the French toast purveyors do. By the time they’re done with it, it’s a dessert. Powdered sugar, fruit compote, whipped cream. Now that can be good, as a dessert, but it’s not French toast.
Here’s the recipe for French Toast:
Connie’s day old homemade white bread sliced about an inch and half thick.
6 eggs, beaten
Heavy cream
A dash of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Good butter
Mix all the ingredients except the butter until you have a creamy thick liquid. Soak the bread in it and pop the slices into a hot pan with melted butter. Fry on both sides until puffed and golden brown.
Serve with copious amounts of butter and maple syrup if you must. Savory sausage patties for contrast on the side. Perfection.
But waffles or pancakes, you ask? I hang out at the Waffle House. In fact, I have a book started: Meet Me at the Waffle House. I have a couple of chapters written. One morning, I wanted something different and noticed they offered waffles with pecans. I have never turned down a pecan in my life. Waffle House waffles with extra pecans and a load of whipped butter are the bomb. Love ‘em. I think it’s the pecans, but they hold the heat. I can actually get a hot waffle. Oooo doggies. Good eating.
Yesterday, I took my Consort to the Waffle House. He decided on a waffle along with eggs etc. I told him to get it with extra pecans. He’ll tell you. Perfection.
So, the answer? Waffles or pancakes? Waffle House waffles (hot) with extra pecans at 5 a.m. with your hot lover and hot coffee. Oooo doggies.
The other ones would make fun if they could see me. My top rim is crimped and stained with lipstick. The bottom is dented and misshapen from trips through the Keurig which is just a tad too small.
I was intended to be a single use with retirement then imminent. This chick has poured at least ten cups of coffee into me. I feel so used. And dirty.
But yet.
I should be in a landfill somewhere making conversation with pods, coffee filters, and wadded-up paper towels – all of my single-use kindred – but here I am with some sort of demented environmentalist who assuages her guilt at using me, by using and using and using me. She’s a demon.
She says she likes the way I fit into her hand. Hell’s bells. I’m just a 20 oz foam coffee cup. Made for take-out and advertising – Waffle House in cheerful black letters on yellow squares. The slogan is “America’s Place to Work” – when did I become a help wanted ad? I’m not suited for such. Who digs through the trash looking for tips on places to work? Is that the sort of person they want?
I hope not. I liked Theresa and Tony. I watched them from my place in the tower of cups next to the Bunn coffee machine. They were fun. Easy banter back and forth. Theresa giggled a lot. Tony looked at her at every opportunity. I wondered if they were having a thing. I knew my time was getting closer as my vantage point got closer and closer to being at the top of the tower of cups.
And then I was next. I could feel the breeze from the air vent on my nether region.
I heard her say, “Oh, and a large coffee to go, please.” With that I was pried off of my neighbor and filled with the steaming hot substance that keeps them going. A lid smartly slapped on. She carried me to the car and then she carried me into her home.
I was sipped until emptied and expected to find myself in a waste can, but no. Next thing I know, I’m being mashed into a too short Keurig and am filled with more coffee. It hurts my rim when she does that. Not to mention my bottom. She may be saving me from the landfill, but must she torture me in the process?
From my point of view, the landfill is not so bad once you get there. The journey through waste receptacles, garbage trucks and that frightening dump from high in the sky is traumatic, but no more traumatic than your average human death.
Time in the landfill, the recycled ones say, is sort of like retirement. You just sit around shooting the shit and playing silly games. Not so bad.
Not so bad here, either. I’ve got a new group of friends here on her desk. The stapler, I’ve never met one you know. As long as he keeps his sharp points to himself, we’ll be friends. The tape. The pen. I understand that at some coffee shops the waitress writes names on the cups. I think I would like to have a name and not just be part of a lot number. The pen and I are brainstorming on how to make that so.
She often names some of her belongings. I daydream that I’m special enough for a name, but refills go by and nothing. I am trying to be content with my lot in life wondering how many more times she will use me. She’s an addict. I wonder who she will replace me with. Will they have a name. Mortimer, maybe? I could be a Mortimer.
W. Va. Fur and Root 