Breakfast and Lunch were having a fight.
“I’m the most important meal of the day,” said Breakfast.
“Sez who?” retorted Lunch. “Your publicist?”
“Says everybody! Nutritionists, doctors, health magazines — they all say it’s a big mistake to skip breakfast. Plus, I’m the first meal of the day. That’s pretty important!”
“And what do all these ‘experts’ say when they’re hungry again, at mid-day — and Dinner is nowhere in sight? What’s important, then? I’ll tell you what: Lunch!”
“Hey, hey, pipe down, you two,” I tried to calm them. “There’s no need to wrangle like this.”
They both turned to me. “Okay, Judy, you settle this: which of us is better?”
I tried to stall. “Can we discuss this over a nice frittata?” Lunch started to pout. “Or maybe a sandwich?” Breakfast began pouting, too.
I took Lunch to one side. “
You’ve made a serious mistake, coming to me,” I said. “You see, I’ve never really liked Lunch.”
“You’re joking! We’ve all seen how you behave at lunchtime, cleaning your plate like there was no tomorrow!”
“Let me clarify. I am happy to eat lunch. I just hate making it.”
I’m also not very good at it. I suppose that’s because I have never truly accepted that I must be in the lunch-making business.
For most of my life, someone else always made lunch — first my mother, then school, then a handful of places near wherever I worked.
Then, all of a sudden — and with no kind of training — I was responsible for lunch, for myself and two children.
It only got worse when they went to school. I would put off making those lunches, every night, until I could barely keep my eyes open, and there was only one thing I could manage:
“Lunch was fine,” said one of my boys, “as long as you liked peanut butter and jelly.”
“It was a little boring,” said the other one, “but I never actually got sick.”
“Let’s try this another way,” said Breakfast. “What is the most memorable breakfast you ever had?”
“Let’s see. That would have to be the one I had on a high school camping trip, somewhere in Wyoming. We slept out under the stars, and awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs frying, and coffee perking, over a campfire.
“Or else — of course! — the breakfasts my boys made for me every Mother’s Day, with pancakes and scrambled eggs, and coffee made by my husband. You see, breakfast always means somebody else is up already and cooking for you. It means love!”
“And lunch?”
“Lunch is just something you’ve gotta do.”
“But surely,” Lunch insisted, “some memory stands out?”
“Well, there was that time when I was sent to buy lunch for our film crew, while they were shooting locations all over Washington, D.C.
“As the lowest person on the totem pole, I was told to go to the sandwich shop at 13th and Pennsylvania and ask for ‘G-man sandwiches, canoe-ed, with hot stuff.’ I took a cab to the location, only to discover that it was literally a hole in the ground, complete with crane and bulldozers!
“Eventually, it dawned on me that in a city with four quadrants, there were two possible ‘Pennsylvania and 13th Streets,’ and the one I needed was probably in Southeast, miles away. I was an hour late with the crew’s lunch. That was not a good day.”
“Don’t you have any good memories of me?” wailed Lunch.
“Sure. I loved going to the diners in Manhattan, and noticing that Tuesday was always black bean soup day, everywhere; Wednesday was lentil; and Thursday was always split pea, which was delicious with grilled cheese and bacon. I wondered why they all served the same soup, the same day. I had visions of giant tanker trucks, full of lentil soup, coming over the George Washington Bridge from somewhere in Jersey: ‘Ya gotta let us through, officer; all of midtown is counting on this lentil soup!’ ”
“All this talk about food is making me hungry,” said Breakfast. “Can we come to the point? Judy, which of us do you love more?”
“And remember,” Lunch said with a wink, “only Lunch has dessert!”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you both halfway — I pick Brunch!”
