A World In Waffles

Dad and I appreciate the combination of banana and chocolate; indiscriminately to the form. Dad mashed half a banana into the waffle batter, while also adding full slices on top to crystallize under the iron’s heat. He used milk chocolate, because at the ripe age of 12 I did not yet prefer dark. Dad put butter in the holes and syrup on the butter in the holes. He brought the waffles into his room on our dystopian white plates, where I awaited nuzzled between my three dogs, salivating like Pavlov’s.

Anticipating not just the food, but the magic he gave to the ordinary. Just wait till you try my new method! Dad would say. Never once did I question there would be something new and magical and different about my Sunday waffle.

We watched Ink Master while we ate.

Clean Rock One, terrible linkwork!

Oliver Peck, take the toothpick out of your mouth!

Who would ever volunteer for this show!

I’d then say I would volunteer because even young, rattling Dad had a certain charm. 

We’d befoul the bad tattoos together, sitting there un-tatted, on no one’s time, and full of waffles. I’d eat slowly and laugh when I got a bite that was so highly composed of chocolate that there was no other taste. I ate without thinking about anything but What a magical waffle and Clean Rock One! 

…

Yesterday I ate oatmeal sloppily out of a plastic bowl, trying to not get any of its mush on my Macbook. I responded to my emails, deciding between, Have a nice day, Addie Uhl, or Appreciate your time, Addie Uhl. The oatmeal tasted how I imagined beige would taste, but I didn’t have time to go downstairs and attempt to make it better. I needed to finish the email.

On my most recent Sunday I had an egg and toast, standing in my kitchen. I was going to sit and enjoy myself but suddenly the food and clock were both gone. The food, enveloped, and the clock, run out.

It seems I have forgotten that eating itself takes time. 

…

I read a book for my senior year thesis called Woman, Food, and God. I thought it was bullshit—Geneen Roth’s claim that the way we eat reflects the way we see ourselves and the world and God. Food is just food!

...

But then, oh wait but then, how I used to see the world in waffles. I saw sweetness and holes that didn’t need to be perfectly filled. I saw the TV while it was on, Clean Rock One’s newest new school design, and didn’t think of all the better ways I should have been spending my time. I thought I had so much of it that I didn’t care, not if Dad brought waffles at 9am or 9:08, not if the bedsheets ought to be washed—my to-do list and utensils were not a spork.

Instead, Dad’s promised magic sat in my little hands and I felt it warming my little heart.

How I see the world now, well, it’s not in waffles. Waffles take time and chocolate is only for dessert and the bed should be made, not eaten in. If Geneen Roth is right and who you are truly falls so cordially in line with breakfast, then I must have also forgotten that living itself takes time. 

…

Dad and I would watch our weekly episode on Sunday with our waffles, and Mom would nag that he was rotting my growing brain. 

This show is so profane Bryan! 

No, it’s teaching Addie argumentation!

Oddly enough Mom, what ended up rotting my brain was the lack of it. My lack of time to be unconcerned with time, to be okay with spending hours in a life that has no connection to my own—the lack of that is what has done my rotting.

A Sunday morning rhetoric used to go like this. 

Christian’s linework, it’s a damn joke! Big bite of waffle. 

God, how ugly. Addie there is syrup on your face. 

One more episode! I’ll just lick it off.

The credits roll and Ink Master leaves us with a preview of the ludicrous coming flash challenges and insufferable human canvases. Dad bets Emily will go home next time. I say no, she won’t, even though she is the worst left. Dad and I walk our plates to the kitchen and don’t bother to clean the waffle maker yet. That’s the thing about waffles, the damn maker is so hard to clean. It gets brown and scents the living room like our morning.

The next part is a whim. Perhaps I then tried to write a bad song or begrudgingly put away my laundry. Perhaps I dealt with the recrudescence of algebra. It didn’t matter, as I had already had my Sunday magic and the rest of time was indifferent to me.

…

The show doesn’t air anymore, or at least our show doesn’t air anymore. The cast and content have been lost. Our waffle maker stays rusting in the tall cupboard I could never reach. I haven’t bought my own since moving out, but if I did, I know I’d clean it before even sitting down to eat, so my waffle would be cold and I probably wouldn’t want a cold waffle anyway, so why buy one? Plus, there is no magic in breakfasts and no breaks to be had in far-off TV shows. 

It seems Ink Master’s argumentation didn’t last in me. I easily convinced Mom to let me order a large ice cream back then, but I can’t even convince myself to order one now. I can’t convince myself it’s okay to take time that’s not necessary or break the mold of “should” that I have so strategically created. Dad would be disappointed to see me this way, as he always had time and he always let the batter drip out of the mold so my waffle could be just a wee bit bigger. The magic he gave to the ordinary, I seem incapable of experiencing it on my own. 

Anyway, what happened to Clean Rock One?

Maybe he withered away from one too many chocolate chip banana waffles in bed.