Bust Your Toast Rules

As my plane touched down, I could see the heat waving to me from the tarmac, a harbinger of sweat and grumpiness. It was a day in which even your sweat hurts, stings, burns, and people just plain bother you. “Let’s do some planning before dinner,” I said to David when we met at the hotel. We sweated our way to a café, one where I used to eat when I lived in D.C., a café that shall remain nameless unless you happen to know of a place near Dupont Circle with a bookstore in the front and restaurant in the back. I’m just saying.

Only four tables were occupied. It was a little after 3:00 pm, so the lunch crowd was back at work and the dinner crowd was dreaming of 5 o’clock.

“Could I get you something to drink?” the waiter asked.

“Do you have Earl Grey tea?” I asked. He nodded yes. “Then I’ll have that.”

“A cup of coffee, black,” David added. We talked as the waiter left: I was hungry—hadn’t had anything before my flight—but I just needed a little something to tide me over until dinner.

“What can I get you?” the waiter asked when he came back with our drinks, smiling pleasantly. “Nothing for me,” David said.

“What I’d really love,” I answered, “is a piece of toast and this side of avocado slices,” pointing to the menu.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the waiter said, beginning a statement that would mark The End of Modern Civilization as We Know It. “I’m sorry, but it’s past toast time.”

Blink.

“Past toast time?”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s past toast time.”

I slowly turned to look at David who was smiling the smile of a man who is unsure what will happen next.

“Wow. And here I never actually knew that there was an official toast time.” The waiter nodded, now impatient, what with all my incredulous blinking cutting into his smoking break. Evidently it’s always cigarette time.

“Well,” I said sweetly, “I just never knew you could actually go past toast time. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you have bread and a toaster, it’s pretty much always toast time.”

Blink.

“Well, then,” I responded, wondering how this would play out if I let it run its course, yelling inside my head, “THERE’S NO ONE HERE! IT’S NOT LIKE RUNNING THE TOASTER WILL SET YOU BACK. I’M NOT ASKING FOR RISOTTO WITH FRESHLY SHELLED SPRING PEAS STIRRED FOR A BLOODY HOUR AND LOVINGLY TOPPED WITH A RARE YET PUNGENT PARMESAN FROM A REMOTE PROVINCE OF NORTHERN ITALY! YOU HAVE THE MEANS! YOU HAVE BREAD! YOU HAVE A TOASTER! YOU HAVE ELECTRICITY! YOU HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO CUSTOMERS!” “That’s some toast rule,” I said instead.

“I’ll just have the side of avocado slices then.” He blinked.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I’ll ask. I don’t believe that’s possible.” He left.

“What’s to ask?” I asked David. “What’s to believe? This isn’t a religion we’re talking about—it’s avocado slices. They’re on the menu,” I said plaintively.

Suddenly, on that hot humid Washington day, I had been transported to a Denny’s in Eugene, Oregon. My name was Jack Nicholson, I was playing the role of piano prodigy Bobby Dupea, and I was starring in a movie called Five Easy Pieces, just trying to get a plain omelet, tomatoes instead of potatoes, and some wheat toast. “No substitutions,” his waitress said. “Only what’s on the menu.” I’m sure he was as incredulous as I was. “You’ve got bread. And a toaster of some kind?” he asked. “I’ll make it as easy for you as I can. I’d like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules.”

The waiter arrived back at our table. “I’m sorry,” he said with a smile, “but They told me that giving you avocado would break every rule known to man.” Every Rule Known To Man. I couldn’t make this up. Forget my irritation at the invocation of “They.” Every rule? Every Single Rule? That’s some exciting avocado. I want me some of that avocado.

I was Yossarian trying to save a bombardier and facing Catch-22: “Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; but soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions…If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of Catch-22. ‘That’s some catch, that Catch-22,’ he observed. ‘It’s the best there is,’ Doc Daneeka agreed.”

“But it’s on the menu,” I said. I pointed to the menu. “Right here, see?”

“Yes,” he answered,” but sides only come with entrees. We can’t serve sides without entrees.”

My lord, there is so much I don’t know. I am sometimes just plain overwhelmed by the fact that not only can I not remember more than three places of pi, don’t really know how to change a tire or speak Urdu, and keep losing my calendar, but somehow—how, oh how is this possible?—I have gotten to this advanced age without ever knowing that sides depend on entrees. “Well, then,” I said simply, “we wouldn’t want to break every rule known to man.” He left for his Cigarette Time which evidently extends far past Toast Time and isn’t subject to the vast vagaries of Customer Time. I quietly reached into my bag, pulled out The Camera, and started taking photographs of the menu, knowing that the Toast Rule and Side Rule would be a source of great inspiration to me much later in life, like now.

Do it Now Challenge

That’s some rule, that toast rule. It’s the best there is. It’s one thing to acknowledge the absurdity of other people’s rules and to laugh at them; it’s another thing altogether to recognize and own the absurdity of the rules that we’ve made up (helpful hint: they’re all made up, some so ingrained that we can no longer see they are Toast Rules). So when a rule pops to the surface, see it for the Toast Rule it is, made up to serve some social norm that is itself made up—or to serve the convenience of a waiter, where “waiter” stands for “person” or “group”—Toast Rules, like girls don’t become backhoe operators, you can’t eat dessert before dinner, never wear white shoes after Labor Day, boys don’t cry, girls don’t play tuba, never whistle in the dark, don’t take wooden nickels, or marriage is the sole right of heterosexual couples. Made up, made up, made up. Bust your Toast Rules. Because in my little universe, it’s always Toast Time.

Patti Digh’s third book, LIFE IS A VERB, will be published by Skirt! Books in October 2008. Her award-winning blog, 37days, focuses on challenges for living more intentionally. Patti can be reached at patti@thecircleproject.com or www.pattidigh.com.

~Patti Digh