The Best Part of Waking Up
I think I’ve discovered the secret to domestic happiness: savoring irony.
I wrote of The Boy’s touching daily gesture of skimping on sleep to eat breakfast with me. He’ll even stumble home, see that we’re out of skim milk (ah, the lettuce and milk debate), run to the grocery store, and come back with both skim milk and vanilla soy milk, just so I’ll have my pick to go with my cereal. After all, there is no denying the wonder of the Northern Breakfast.
This morning he woke me up to tell me he had brought me breakfast. He was so excited.
"I really hope you like it. I drove to the store straight from work, but they didn’t open until 6:30, so I waited until 6:30 just to get it."
Even in my groggy state, part of me smiled at the gesture and part of me latched onto the "I really hope you like it." Even with cobweb-filled brain, I understood this was a Bad Sign.
Now, I live for breakfast. I live for meals, actually, which I start planning in advance (I went to ballet last night thinking of what I could have for lunch today…mostly because we don’t have any groceries at all, but also because, well, that’s another habit left over from college when I had to figure out what was even remotely edible in our dining hall. Yes, I’m aware this is strange). But breakfast really is my favorite meal of the day. You wake up hungry, there’s lots of cereal to choose from, you usually don’t have to cook anything, and you can let the dirty dishes wait until later because it’s only 7 am when you finish. So I had decided last night honey shredded wheat with skim milk and an apple was my Thursday Breakfast of Champions.
The Boy was so excited. He got me a blanket to wrap around my shoulders while we ate. He opened the blinds so we had some light to eat by that wasn’t too jarring. He led me to the table in my half-blind state since I hadn’t put in my contacts yet. He pulled out my chair for me (yes, he still does this. In fact, the only time he doesn’t do it is if we eat at a place with a booth. I told you he’s great). And all the while he said, "Oh, I really hope you like it. I really hope you do. I waited for the place to open for half an hour."
In front of me I found words I have nightmares about: Chik-Fil-A.
I’ve never eaten at Chik-Fil-A, but it scares me. I understand it includes a menu with words like "breaded" and "fried" and "buttered" (I’m really not a nutritional freak - my problem is I could eat an entire loaf of bread in one sitting (mmm…bread). Same with a bag of cookies or a cake or tortilla chips. But I grew up having never eaten anything fried - I think I’ve had fried chicken twice in my life and hated it). Also, they put pickles on their sandwiches, which The Boy and I agree are like anthrax - they taint everything they touch with pickle juice, which takes like sour spit.
But The Boy had mentioned he wanted to try their breakfast sandwiches. And so here I was with a chicken biscuit in one hand and a buttered biscuit in the other.
(Even the shiny foil wrapper said "Buttered." More nightmares.)
"So? What do you think?"
I unwrapped the wrapper and took a bite. Juicy. Buttery. Flaky. Greasy. All at the same time. It kind of stuck in my mouth.
"Here, let me get you something to drink. Skim milk?"
I nodded, chewed, and swallowed.
"So, what do you think?"
I looked across from me. The Boy’s breakfast was untouched and getting cold. He had gotten me a glass of milk (a short glass, just the way I like it) but had forgotten to get a drink for himself. He had given me the choice of jams for my Buttered Biscuit, grape and strawberry, and took grape even though he hates it after I picked strawberry. I had no contacts in, my bangs were sticking straight up, and I had pillow marks all over my cheeks.
"It’s delicious."
