Breakfast of Champions

A few weeks ago, Hungry commented on my post about The Very First Bento, and mentioned her own breakfasts throughout high school. It brought to mind what is easily my sister’s favorite story about me (and doesn’t involve poop; if you know anything about my family and the stories they like to tell about me, they almost all involve poop of some sort), and one that could only marginally be described as having to do with food. Well, it starts off about food; if you have a sensitive stomach or an overactive imagination, you may want to skip this one.

Sorry.

I attended high school in lower Manhattan, and commuted every day about an hour, hour and a half each way. (While I don’t think it takes an hour and a half, I know that no matter how hard I tried, I rarely got home from school before 4:30p, even though the last bell was at 2:50. This baffled my parents. It baffles me now, but as a teenager, it just seemed normal.) Early on in my high school years, I complained about being hungry in the mornings but not having time to make something to eat – I woke up at 6 or 6:30, left at 7:30, first period started at 9:25. (Is it obvious I’m terrible at managing my time? Because I am. I’m really, really awful at time management. Truly.) I frequently stopped at one of the ubiquitous carts that I passed during my walk from the subway station to my school and grabbed a bagel with cream cheese or a Boston creme donut, which is not healthy, but as I weighed about 100 lbs. (108 by the time I graduated) and stood 5’7+, my parents didn’t discourage my habit.

However, one morning, my father got it in his head that I should eat a real breakfast before going to school. I think he saw something or read something about breakfast being the most important meal of the day, and he was determined that his youngest child should have something hearty, healthy, filling to start her day of high school classes. So he made me breakfast and insisted I eat it before I leave: two sunny side up eggs, some sort of protein (bacon, or I miss my guess), buttered toast, and possibly a hash brown. It wasn’t a small amount of food, but I dutifully sat down and ate the breakfast he’d made for me, finished it, and then left for the subway.

(I know it sounds like my father had nothing better to do than to make sure I ate well, but… well, that was his goal, to make sure his kids were happy. He retired when he was 40 – and it became a running joke that my sister would retire when she was 30. Coincidentally, I quit my office job the year I turned 30, though I was 29 at the time, and I haven’t looked back. In any case, he retired at 40 after working very hard to make sure his family had everything they could ever want – owning a few restaurants, working as a computer programmer, and just pushing himself to achieve those things. His decision to retire was spurred by the realization that his children were growing up too fast for him to really be there for them, and he wanted to change that. There’s a large age difference between my sister and I, so I comment frequently about me being his favorite partially because after he retired, he spent an extraordinary amount of time involved in my life, more than he had with either of my siblings, simply due to our age differences and when he retired.  Okay! Now that you know more about my family history than you ever thought you would, and more than my family probably wants you to know, back to our regularly scheduled program…)

As I walked the 15 minutes to the subway, I felt very hot and uncomfortable. I was wearing what had to be the ugliest down jacket ever created – solely for the purpose of embarrassing an insecure high school girl, I think – it made me look like a football player, all lumps and bumps but no real shape to me. I unzipped it and tried walking slower, but eating breakfast had taken some time and I needed to get to school on time. I wasn’t a big fan of my first period class – biology with the infamous Mr. Kane, who, rumor had it, had impregnated one of his students and subsequently married her – and I couldn’t afford to be late another time. (The rumor is true, though told to sound more scandalous than it is; all of that happened after she’d graduated, though she did have him as a teacher while she was attending high school.)

I boarded my first subway, the R train, and found a seat easily as was the norm. I settled in for a quick nap, which helped ease the growing discomfort in my stomach. After 20 minutes, the train pulled into Times Square, and I got up to transfer to the 2/3 train. The brisk walk from the R train over to the 2/3 platform was again uncomfortable, and I piled into the 2/3 train very uneasily as I felt queasy beyond all reason.

The train rocked back and forth. I was becoming noticeably ill and praying I could hold it until I got to school. It was extremely crowded – morning rush hour on a train that goes straight to the NY Stock Exchange and Wall Street is like that – but I couldn’t hold it.

If you know me now, and even if you knew me in high school, you might not believe this: I was the opposite of vocal. I was shy, almost painfully shy, to the point that I had trouble going up to the counter at McDonald’s to ask for more ketchup. I couldn’t talk to strangers. I would never dream of going up to someone just to chat. I could barely look servers in the eye (though that is another story, perhaps one day it’ll be told). I was ridiculously shy… and I’m still a little surprised at how the next few minutes played out.

After the 14th Street stop had come and gone, I knew my stop was next and I just needed to keep it together for a few more minutes. I was relieved. I was also starting to sweat a little – my face felt clammy and hot, and I knew I wasn’t in any shape to make it to school from the subway (it’s about two and a half long blocks). I was already plotting to duck into McDonald’s, which was on the way, to use the restroom, praying that no one from school would be there and recognize me.

The train lurched a little, and I started to sweat just a little bit more. Finally, I sucked it up and practically whispered to the man sitting directly in front of where I stood, “Excuse me… sir… I’m really not feeling well. Do you think… I could sit down for a minute? The next stop is mine.”

In hindsight, he was probably as surprised as I was; who asks somoene else for their seat? Why would anyone give it up, especially for a super young looking kid? He looked me in the face, and though I don’t blame him for saying no, he really didn’t have to snarl at me, “No, what? Really?” with an air that said exactly that: “Why would I do that?” It wasn’t him saying no that makes me feel marginally better about what happened next; it’s how he said no that makes me feel almost okay.

Almost.

I simply nodded – because there was no argument, there was no need to prolong an unpleasant conversation, there was simply an urgent need for me to concentrate on keeping my breakfast in my stomach. An incredibly urgent need. Concentrate. Focus. Through sheer power of will, make my stomach behave.

The train lurched suddenly, practically throwing me towards the nasty man.

My stomach lurched suddenly, actually throwing its entire contents up all over the nasty man.

I was mortified.

He, however, was not mortified. He was livid. He began screaming at me, “OH MY GOD! LOOK WHAT YOU DID! THIS SUIT IS A HUGO BOSS SUIT! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS WAS? YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR MY DRY CLEANING” and other assorted words that are much meaner and ruder that I just won’t repeat here. I was 14. It was a bit excessive, but I could sort of understand how angry he was, just by putting myself in his shoes.

I was also terrified. I didn’t know how much dry cleaning was and I honestly had no money – maybe a few bucks? – and … well, what could I do? I didn’t know what he would do to me. So I mumbled my apologies more than once. More than twice. More than three times and then –

the subway pulled into my stop, and people began pouring off the train. I melted into the crowd disembarking and shouted more apologies as he spluttered furiously. I hung my head in immense shame, went into the McDonald’s, finished evacuating my stomach the rest of the way, and tried to calm down enough for bio class.

And I never ate a huge breakfast directly before getting on the subway again.