Save My Toast!

Oldest child tells me that writing about gardening is incredibly dull when I could have shared the toast incident. "Now that was funny," she says. "You have to stop writing about things that are so boring."

So here it is.

We were having our usual morning on a Wednesday. Oldest child caught the middle school bus at 7:15. Once she was out the door, I had 45 minutes until the next bus, which we spent on cartoons, cereal, lunches and getting dressed.

I got the usual request for cinnamon toast from my younger girl. Picky picky picky about her toast, it has to be just the right color pale brown, have just the right ratio of butter to cinnamon sugar and, most importantly, the crusts must be cut off. We had a misfire, that is to say that I burned the first batch of toast, requiring me to make more. Finally the toast was perfect, but a ticking clock forced the child to eat it on the road. We raced down to the bus stop, where we meet up with our neighbor and his kids. Being the slow poke that she is, she had only taken a bite or two out of her first slice (she had two) when the bus pulled up. She stopped to press the toast into my hand (no eating on the bus!) before running like heck, crying "Save my toast!" over her shoulder.

Once she couldn't hear us, my neighbor and I howled at the thought of it - right - I'm going to save the toast until she gets home. Then, when we turned around to walk back home, I lobbed the toast over the bushes and into the woods. We kept laughing about it as we walked all the way up the street.

Now it's 3:35 and my neighbor and I are again down at the bus stop, this time waiting for our children to get home from school. His dog has followed him down, because their electric fence keeps getting run over by the lawnmower, so the collar no does anything. Lucky comes and goes as he pleases, and this time he was pleased to come with us to the end of the street. Then he runs into the woods just as the bus pulls up.

Four kids come flying off the bus and the dog comes prancing out of the bushes to meet them with, you guessed it, the unbitten piece of cinnamon toast carried in his mouth like a serving tray.

"My toast!" my sweet girl cries in dismay. "You promised to save it!" and the sad thing is that there were actual tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. However, my neighbor cannot contain himself and has fallen down on the ground laughing. I have to say that I needed the laugh preventer to help myself maintain my composure and sympathy. Then the dog opened his mouth and swallowed the toast whole, making the kid laugh too.

Better?