The Last Breakfast

Monday I returned to work. Summer has a way of ending too soon. Last Friday, August 7, was only halfway to autumn!

Every year, we have a district-wide breakfast to celebrate our return to work. Maybe it's not so much a celebration as a bribe to keep the would-be angry mob from storming the podium with flaming torches and pitchforks. Teachers DO appreciate a free meal!

Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom ate like a king on this very last of her long career of back-to-school breakfasts. Not like a queen. No bread and honey for Mrs. HM. Not even a dainty dish of blackbird cobbler. Nope. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom pulled out all the stops. HER ROW OF TABLES WENT FIRST! That has not happened since the early days in our new Newmentia building!

Oh, how shall I describe the bounty that lay before me? Imagine, if you will, the feast laid out for Mr. Bumble and the people who ran the workhouse in the 1968 Academy Award winning Best Musical Oliver! The sumptuous repast adorning the table down in WhoVille, replete with roast beast. A casino buffet in Vegas, baby! Oh, the endless platters of vittles ripe for the taking...

At Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's Last Breakfast, she's always tenth in line. There was a momentary hiccup when the last speaker realized he had not asked a board member to give the blessing. That's okay! We stopped in our tracks and showed our respect. Even if some folks did look like Chevy Chase viewing the Grand Canyon in National Lampoon's Vacation.

For some odd reason, the first scavenger to the table started at the wrong end. We never start at the gym end, but at the hall end. So we were confronted with fruit first. Or as Farmer H would call it, FILLER. I grabbed a thin wedge of watermelon, AND a thin wedge of cantaloupe. A rare treat, as one or the other is usually depleted by the time I reach them. I was considerate of those feeders yet to come, and skipped past the goblet overflowing with pineapple tidbits, and the platter of red grapes, green grapes, and stemmed cherries. Past the tub of eggs scrambled with red and green peppers. No interest in heartburn today! Ahh...the bacon was stacked as high as an elephant's eye. I snagged two pieces. A biscuit which I ripped open and slathered with gravy filled with chunks of sausage. Then the regular scrambled eggs. And the link sausage. Mmm...just two. The hash browns! With CHEESE! And I'll be darned if there wasn't a dessert spread. Little squares of cinnamon-crumble-topped goodness, or cream cheese topping. And mini blueberry muffins! I passed the squares and nabbed a muffin. No need to be greedy. Besides, my plate was groaning.

Whew! I saved that mini muffin for later. It was still cooling in my classroom mini fridge when I left. Do you realize how hard it is to keep your eyes open during three and a half hours of meetings after being one of the firsts in line for The Last Breakfast?

I was much more alert that year the food ran out and I had only a smattering of scrambled eggs with spicy peppers, and some squishy loose grapes.