Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

I burned a piece of toast tonight pursuing an evening snack. It burned because I started the toaster and went back to a video I was watching, and lost track of the timer in my head. I blame Daylight Savings Time.

Suddenly remembering, I hustled into the kitchen, saw the plume of smoke starting to billow from the toaster oven and hoped to rescue its payload of organic nine-grain before the smoke alarm sounded, thereby forestalling a bleary-eyed kitchen inquest from housemates awakened from sound slumber.

All-quiet in the sleeping chambers, I found myself possessed of a charred candidate for the composting bucket, which one would normally chuck and start fresh.

Then I remembered in the 50s my mom, when she burned toast, scraping away the layer of ash and plating it, both in order to conceal it from her husband’s breakfast, and to avoid the cost of wasting food. They were saving, you see, in order to buy a house whose bedroom did not abut noisily with that of their three young sons, and every post-war penny was accounted for.

Channeling my mom, I repaired what I could, buttered my briquet and ate it. It wasn’t bad. And any of us who’s paid $35 in a restaurant for blackened snapper can’t cast any shade.