The Breakfast Club

With the holidays behind us, and the multiple offers for eggnog and Tom and Jerry's from cheery friends (followed by multiple refusals of said hot drinks by me), I'm moved to tell the story of how I came to detest the nutmeg-laced concoctions. And no, it was not because I had too many when I was away at college that first year! The reason I don't like these horrible holiday toddies is a right I began earning as a child.

Here's the thing; I've never liked breakfast. Even when I was say, five I forewent breakfast in favor of a quick dressing and a dash out the door to go roust my best girlfriend for the day's fun. It was natural, then, that when school started and my mom wanted to make sure I had something in my little tummy, I resisted. Somehow we got the point where she quit arguing with me about the breakfast matter. Only she didn't let it just die. No, she quit arguing, but began slapping a peanut butter and jelly toast sandwich in my hand on the way out the door.

Until I was about 11, we lived in the city. I went out the back door and down the driveway to get to the sidewalk. Most days, that PBJ toast landed in the neighbor lady's basement window well. It was less than 20 steps I had to carry the offending food! I assume some squirrel or dog came to rely on my mother's lovingly made breakfast of champs that I so disdainfully tossed aside each morning, but I'll never really know what actually happened to those after I garbaged them. All I know is that I never saw a pile of them creeping over the metal of the window well.

When we moved to the country, this tradition continued. We rode a bus, so my mom would slap the sandwich into my hand on my way to wait for the bus. Well, I guess she must have watched out the window a lot without my knowing it. I mean, I was careful about when and where I launched the sandwich in case she was looking! I waited until I was around the curve of our driveway with the granary blocking her view to my pitch. I guess the fact that I wasn't happily munching on this tasty morsel gave me away.

In retrospect, I wish I'd done a better job of hiding the fact that I didn't eat these while I was waiting for the bus. All those years of being the wily one caught up to me because my mom is pretty clever too. (After what? Only five years of making sandwiches for the area strays)! So her next idea was born. Her next solution is what turned me against nutmeg forever. Remember, this was way before raw eggs were thought to be a taboo consumption. I would wake up every morning to a glass of farm fresh milk that had a raw egg whipped into it. I guess she thought a little nutmeg sprinkled on top would make it more palatable. It didn't. Really, it didn't.

I was cornered! After years of winning the breakfast wars, she had plotted and won! I was not allowed to leave until the glass of egg, milk, and nutmeg was in my gut. How could this happen? I drank the slimy spiced breakfast drink each morning with a disgust that I find just writing about it now brings the expression to my face again. I think you know the look. It's that look you reserve for scrutinizing really ugly bugs that you can't quite wrap your brain around. It's that expression that appears when your best friend peels back a sleeve to show you the disgusting wound garnered from some horrible accident with a piece of sheet metal or something equally disturbing. Yeah, that look.

And so it was that each morning I would face the large glass of nutrition that my mother had made for me, sitting on the counter. Sometimes she would watch me drink it, standing smugly, watching in victorious mode. But I got good at slamming the thing, then wiping my mouth like a man who had just downed a whole beer to impress his friends. I rinsed the glass with a frown then dashed to the bathroom to brush my teeth to put it behind me.

I'm still not a breakfast person. I like donuts, PopTarts, Toaster Strudels if I'm eating before 10:00am. What I really like is cake or cookies for breakfast. In fact, I had a Tollhouse bar for breakfast a few minutes ago. Normally, I'd probably be inclined to say, "Don't tell my mom," but a few years ago when I was home visiting she slipped and actually divulged some insider information that an enemy should never have. She actually said these words: "The best thing about being a grown-up is that if you want to have cake for breakfast, you can." Whoa! I don't think she actually said it to throw the power drink era in my face, rather a truce that breakfast can be nontraditional. I know that parents can't tell their high school kids that they sometimes eat Devils Food for breakfast. But the fact remains that sometimes they do eat chocolate cake at 7:00am.

If the worst scar I got from my childhood is a distaste for nutmeg, I'd say I did okay. Truthfully, my mom taught me some pretty good eating habits. I know the value of eating in the morning, but I still just don't like it. And while I never resorted to the milk and egg drink with my step-kids, I'm wise enough to know that's because they never refused my insistence of the bowl of cereal I poured for them. There's no telling what tactics I might have employed on their behalf had they fought me. They'll probably never know how lucky they are to have played by my rules.

Have a Tom and Jerry for me. I'll be in the corner with a Christmas cookie and a hot chocolate.