Dirty Perkins

Before Lyla, Julie and I would go to Perkins on Saturday before showering. The food there tastes better when you're dirty. Their slogan is "Always Something Fresh and New," so you don't have to be.

This morning while Julie slept in, I took Lyla out for dirty Perkins.


We got there before 7:00, so Lyla was easily the youngest person there, and I was easily second-youngest. The nine remaining diners tied for third-youngest at approximately 97 years of age.

Lyla's child menu french toast sticks came with bacon on the side. Is Perkins in cahoots with heart surgeons? I substituted fruit for the bacon and then sheepishly (piggishly, rather) ordered bacon on the side for my meal. "Lyla, do as Dada says, not as Dada does." Of course, all Lyla wanted was my bacon, so I gave her a tiny piece and then crammed the remaining 3.8 pieces in my mouth so she couldn't demand more.

"Mo' peez," she said after swallowing the bacon pellet.

"Aw gohng," I said with my mouth bacon-stuffed. Have you ever had 3.8 strips of bacon in your mouth at once? I think it's what heaven tastes like.

So she ate every grape in her fruit bowl and avoided all the honeydew melon and cantaloupe. Then she sucked the jelly off some of my toast, barely touched her french toast sticks (a plus since they're about as good for you as bacon), and said she was all done but sat there patiently while I syringed two cups of coffee into my femoral artery.

I think this will be a Saturday ritual: dad and daughter dirty breakfast.

In other food-related news, Lyla seems to have a moral objection to hot foods. It's to the point where she expects you to blow on her food no matter what it is. This is Mama blowing on bread and hummus.


And now she expects me to blow on it.


By the way, check out our new refrigerator in the background. We stole it from the the Jetsons. "Lyla, the display on the door says that the hummus is 37 degrees. Mama's breath is 98.6 degrees. Mama's actually making your hummus hotter."

Lyla nods her head. "Hot!"