Toast

I love toast. After the night's hard drinking (like a fool, I started at six and only realised at 10:30 that this wasn't smart preparation for the race at the weekend) we walked back to the flat, ravenous.

As it's the day before payday, the cupboards were bare, save for the end of the bread. Just enough for two slices of life-giving toast. Just enough for two slices of life-giving toast for me.

Unfortunately, my wife had other ideas, and once I'd toasted the bread and buttered it, she snatched one of the slices. Now, marriage is about sharing things, but that doesn't necessarily extend to bread products. I asked for it back. Well, I say "asked", I think I just lunged. She held on. I took one corner of the toast and pulled. She folded the slice and increased her grip. Now the delicate, beautiful, delicious toast was all bent out of shape, butter dripping through her fingers. I pulled again at the edge of it, but my wife was too strong for me. I knew if I were to win this battle, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. I'd have half a slice of mangled toast, like an obscene replica of the judgment of Solomon, but made from wheat.

So I relented, and let my wife eat my ruined slice of toast, and wondered whether at my age my father would regularly get trashed on top-quality booze and then engage in half-arsed wrestling matches with my mother in the kitchen over who got the last piece of cake. I assume not, but then we all place our parents on pedestals they can struggle to balance on.