I like making my own breakfast in the morning for a variety of reasons:

1. It’s the cheapest and quickest

2. It gives me the satisfaction that I’ve accomplished something, even before I step out the front door. If I do nothing else in the day, I know I did something important. 😊

This morning I skipped my breakfast making routine in an effort to make it on-time for an early meeting at work. I didn’t make it on-time, for the third time in less than 7 working days. Groan. It’s those meetings where crawling into the room and hiding under the table is likely the best option. I didn’t do that, but I did arrive late.

It’s in these instances of lateness I must decide which actor to play; it’s a coin toss on:

a) Give puppy dog eyes, make eye contact with the most important person in the room and look for an emotional connection that surely they’ve experienced by:
i. Blaming the traffic
ii. Blaming my pillow for not letting go
iii. Blaming a family emergency

b) Make no-eye contact, hunched shoulders, find an inconspicuous chair at the back

c) Make eye contact with everyone in the room, be unapologetic and dare anyone in the room to challenge your lateness. This one you really need a snappy response in mind in case your bluff is called. Usually you only do this one when you know there isn’t anyone in the room brave enough to say anything. Is this a bullying tactic or just good strategy, I don’t know.

d) A combination of the above 3.

Regardless, once I guiltily sat myself down on the only available chair at the front of the boardroom table, I found myself sitting directly across from a coworker who evidently not only arrived on-time but had enough wiggle room to wait in a Tim Hortons’ early-morning-rush-line.

If you’ve never been in a Tim Hortons’ early-morning-rush-line, let’s suffice to say it’s a nail biting, stressful way to start a day. You can’t control what the 4th person in front of you is going to decide to order that will hold the line up for a good 15 minutes. And when you are trying to get somewhere on-time, it feels more like 60 minutes and that your life might actually end!!

My stomach was rumbling throughout the entire 2 hour meeting. Well, 1 hour and 45 minutes for me. 🙂

When we were let out, I dashed back to my desk and promised myself a treat, I was going to Tim Hortons to buy myself breakfast.

And here is how it goes when I go to Tim Hortons for breakfast:

First off the server at the counter had a really sour face and that instantly threw my ordering off. It was distracting.

“Why were they so grumpy?” “What did I do to them?” “Ok, ok, don’t take this personally,” I self-talked myself, “It’s past 9am, they should have had their coffee by now, what’s their excuse?” and that’s when I notice their face is getting a little more sour and revert to ”I am making them sour, it is me!! Ok ok, I gotta order fast”

“I’ll have a…” I stumble on my words, what do they call these buns I see on the menu, “I’ll have a McM…,” no, no, no, no that’s McDonald’s silly….thinking, thinking, thinking, what do they call those silly buns, the first meal on the menu that’s what I want but I don’t want that kind of bun, oh look there is the bun I want and they have a number beside it, “I’ll have number 3,” I finish. Phew.

“You want the egg white breakfast sandwich.” The sour server informed me.

“No, no, no,” I feel stumped. That’s not what I want and I try again, “I want the full egg on a…,” again I can’t think of what that damn bun is called, “on a McM…,” and I catch myself again, this isn’t McDonalds and that is when the second server came to the recuse.

“She wants a breakfast sandwich number 1 on an English Muffin,” and she looks at me and continues, “Do you want bacon, sausage or ham?”

And that my friends, is the real reason why I choose to make my own breakfast in the morning.