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Hello, and welcome to the seventeenth installment of NotWriting.com, an open
journal on how one writer spends his time when he really should be
writing.Sorry that I haven't
notwritten in a while. Burned out from notwriting, grad school
applications, and constant rejections from snooty literary journals, I
took a little seven-week vacation from this website and spent a lot of
time repairing my soul with
Clint Eastwood movies. I feel much better now.
In the coming weeks, you'll learn
more about me than you probably want or care to know. Like my experiences
getting high colonics, my day in NYC's car impound lot (the pricks towed
my car), and gearing up for the coming Armageddon. Anyway, without further
ado, let me tell you about faith and scrambled eggs.
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At 4:59 this morning,
I was in the only 24-hour diner around, waiting for my plate of scrambled
eggs and sausage. Except for my waiter and the Mexican guy mopping the floor, the place was empty.
It seems to me that, to a cook, this would be the best time of day—no
customers, no rush, no problems—the
time of day when you'd expect everything that comes out of those double
doors to be the quintessence of culinary perfection. At least that's
what you'd think, right? My breakfast arrived. However, what I
had asked for were eggs, "cooked, but NOT brown." Instead I
received a plate of indiscernible, partially cooked white and yellow
clumps. The "chef" hadn't even bothered to scramble the damn things in a
bowl. God, this pisses me off. It's the mystery of the fucking universe:
Why can't ANY restaurant make a decent scrambled egg?
In my short lifetime of 33 years, I figure I've ordered and not eaten about 300 plates
of scrambled eggs. At an average of, say, $3.50 per meal, I've been
ripped off to the tune of $1050.00. To be fair, let's call it an even
grand. That's a nice home or car stereo system, or today, an inexpensive
computer. Hell, in some parts of this country , that's a down payment on a house
(not that you'd want to live there).
And yet, I keep trying. I keep the
faith. Every time I go into a restaurant for breakfast, I ponder the menu
while my wife, Alexas, rolls her eyes because she knows what's coming
next. I say that I'm thinking of trying something different—maybe a type
of egg that would be harder for them to screw up, like poached.
"Just get the scrambled," Alexas
says, egging me on.
"They're gonna be crap."
"Maybe not," she says.
"Alright."
And so I order them, and 95% of the
time, they're horrible. So bad that I often fantasize about going into
the back and chopping the cook's hands off with a cleaver.
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CYBER-BEGGING: The author,
having
lost considerable cash
on poorly cooked breakfasts,
needs your financial support.
STILL SMILIN': Another diner patron,
also
hopeful
that his scrambled eggs will be
edible,
stares wistfully into space. Actually,
the poor bastard has Alzheimer's and
doesn't know what
the hell is going on.
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I realize this is a bit extreme, but
I really enjoy a good scrambled egg, and I'm terribly disappointed
when I can't get one. Still, why don't I understand by now that the
chances of getting a good one are very slim and I therefore shouldn't
bother? I can sum it up for you in one word: faith.
In Hebrews 11:1, there's a pretty
good description of what we're talking about: "Faith is the substance
of all things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The idea is
that even in the face of a complete lack of evidence that I will get a
nicely cooked scrambled egg, I hang in there. |
GOOD TIMES AT FENWAY: The scene of some
of my best childhood memories.
1
Where Dad and I sat for my first game
at the ballpark. The Red Sox lost to the KC Royals, but I got to see
star third-baseman George Brett make a couple impossible
diving catches.
2
Where Dad muscled the two of us
in front of the other pesky kids so I could get a ball autographed by
the
legendary Ted Williams. Later that night, I puked on myself from
too much candy and crap, and I lost the autographed ball a few
months later because I wanted to play catch and didn't have a ball
around, and I lost it in some pricker-bushes.
3 The
foul pole
above the Green Monster. In 1975, my hero, Carlton Fisk, hit one of
the most famous homeruns in baseball history
during the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Although I
didn't get to see that one firsthand, I did see Jimmy Rice pound
a couple over the wall and also witnessed Yankee Reggie Jackson miss
hitting one over the wall by inches (yeah!).
4
Where
I was sitting in the bleachers during batting practice when I caught a
ball hit by Carl Yastremski and threw it back to, but way
over the head of, center-fielder Fred Lynn, who quipped to me, "Hey,
good arm, kid." Now you understand why I keep the faith.
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I never used to think so, but now I
know that I am a person of faith. Not just religious faith, mind you,
but faith in all things. Only faith (or unbelievable obstinacy,
which in a sense is what faith is) can explain my loyalty to Apple
Computer even in the face of
three (3!) broken iMacs.
Only faith can explain why I continue to submit fiction to the top
literary journals, even in the face of incessant rejection. And only
faith can explain my lifelong allegiance to the
Boston Red Sox, and how, every year around this time, with spring
gathering outside, I say to my wife, "I think they're gonna do it this
year, hon."
And let me tell you, when those Red
Sox win, I'm going to be rioting and partying (PAH-tee-en) in the
streets of Boston with my fellow faithful fans. And afterward, when
we're all hung over as hell, we'll hit the buffet at the Copley Place
Marriott, where, inexplicably, I've always gotten a damn good
scrambled egg.
Thank you for reading another
installment of notwriting. Your faith and allegiance are
appreciated.
- 30 - |
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Above: The author, still not writing. He's
down in Florida, watching the Red Sox
in pre-season action. After all, this could
be the year they go all the way!
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©2003 Chris Orcutt and notwriting.com. All rights
reserved. |
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