Scraping The Toast
By: Lynn
It was considered an extraordinary day and even an omen of good
things to come when my Mother didn't burn the toast. Normally, every
day of my childhood started with the sound of Mother's footsteps
coming across the house and the banging of cabinets and pots. From
oatmeal to eggs, my Mother believed in filling all our tummies before
we were sent out into the world. By the time she was heard scraping
the toast, we were supposed to be dressed and pretty doggone close to
being ready. By the time the plate of scraped toast hit the table,
technically we were supposed to be sitting down to eat. Most
mornings, the bird tried to coax us there earlier by making the same
szzht, szzht, szzht sound, but that never worked. Please, we were
clever children!
My Father always said he just couldn't understand how a woman could burn toast every day of her life and never correct the problem. He just didn't understandä.. you can't correct genetics. It wasn't just the toast, it was a bread thing in general and timers or even posting a person at the oven could not override it. When my grandmother came to visit, she did it too. I accepted it was genetic and I even learned to like burned bread. Occasionally, I manage to get that perfect, golden, brown color and it is irresistible to me, but basically I just think if the worst thing that happens to me all day long is burned bread, wellä.. hey, that's not a bad day after all!
I was deep in thought working up to one major pity party one morning after Leslie backed out on the invitro, when I smelled burning toast. Pulling it out of the oven, I said aloud to my dogs, "I was supposed to be a Mom by now. This whole thing started in December of last year. I was going to be through working by now. I am supposed to be running around after babies, changing diapers, mixing formula and getting no sleep. I had been really looking forward to it. Now I have to quit all this limping and get a job again."
The toast was black, so I prepared to begin the scraping. After two recent foot surgeries, everything took a little longer and that only added to my frustration. "I hate," I said to their 'no longer interested in the food I took out of the oven' faces, "getting a new job." My husband gets transferred every three years or so with his job and that means I get to start all over againä resumes, interviewing, dressing up and smiling. "Yes, I can do anything. Yes, I am superwoman. Yes, I will be loyal, trustworthy, amazingly productive and a team player. Yes, I understand there is a probationary period and yes, I know I will have to take a pay cut until you realize my potential!" Oh, I can hardly wait...
I wanted to start my own business and even managed to print the brochures for it until an attorney convinced me that the liability would be more enormous than the profits. I didn't know what I would do with the business and a house full of babies anyway, so it didn't kill me to give it up. But it did mean I had to start the job search again. Hello computer, hello newspaper, hello fax machine and hello, glad to meet you, my name is Lynn.
I reached for the knife and started the familiar scraping again just as the dogs were leaving the kitchen having lost all hope of anything decent that might fall on the floor to eat. "Well, I'm not doing anything!", I announce to them near tears. "I am done, done, DONE! I don't care if I don't have a job, I don't care if I can't walk normal, I don't care if I never have children. Do you hear me? I don't care! Because I am done, done, D-O-N-E, done." Now crying more with the promise of a jag coming on, I announced to them, "They can just flush those damn eggs, because I am not going to put myself through this torture anymore! I have reached my limitä.it simply isn't worth it anymore. No one can be expected to go through this much hell and misery to have children. No oneä."
I sat down at the table having gotten the jelly during my crescendo crying and prepared to eat. I was having to yell for the dogs to hear me now, they had gone into the bathroom to sleep on the cool tile. Obviously between the crying, screaming, crazy woman and the burnt toast, they made the best decision they could. I was really crying. My pity party was in full swing with no promising end in sight. The only thing that could save me now was running out of tears.
I spread the jelly over the patchwork black and less black toast. Just before the first bite however, I had to use my napkin to blow my nose. True pity parties are messy and fairly snotty. I spread the want ads out before me on the table and opened them up to begin circling my prospects. With toast in hand, I read the first two or so and began to cry in earnest all over again. "I hate this! I really hate this! I would rather live in a cardboard box than do this again! I swear I would!" I yell to the probably snoring dogs. "I am supposed to be someone's Mother by now!", I cough out all snotted up. "This just isn't fair!"
I drink a little juice and decide to tackle the toast again. One bite and I realize this is practically burned through and through! "Great!", I yell and cry out. "I can't even make decent burned toast anymore!" Then I cried so hard I began to shake. I laid my head down on the table just like a dramatic two or three year old and wailed in full volume that reverberated throughout the house. (It took a while to get past the theatrics, I had a lot of pent up frustration and disappointment to purge.)
Finally, I put the toast down the garbage disposal. I opened the refrigerator and took out my emergency 3 Musketeers bar and cut a whole one up in little pieces. I ate it all, drank milk to even out the nutritional value and chucked the whole morning as a loss. Then, with all the dignity I could muster, I went directly back to bed and went back to sleep hoping that with any luck at all, my brain would sort this all out and my dreams would cheer me up.
Later that afternoon I did wake up, showered, got dressed and went to the mall. I bought about three hundred dollars worth of clothes I knew I was going to take back the next week. (You don't pick out anything you really want to keep on a pity party mall trip) I made it home in time to watch Oprah and called my husband to say he was taking me out to eat that night no matter how tired he was. He could tell by my voice it was not up for discussion.
Sitting in the car, at the Sonic Fast Food Drive-In that night, I told him I was just fed up and could not do it any more. "What?" he asked, "what can't you do?" "Anything," I said, "not get a job, not have children, not even make decent burnt toast." "Oh," he said seriously, "I see. This is a pity party." "Yes," I said softly. "Well" he replied, "then you better order accordingly, because you'll be wanting dessert."
He's going to be a wonderful
father.
February 1999
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