GOOD MORNING, BUTTERFLY

The problem with 'breakfast' is that food is a social event, and the mind is not geared up for sociability that early. Unless, like so many Americans, you come down to bacon -- sausage -- eggs unwashed, flatulent, and in your underwear. Which has seen better days.

Civilized people, if they are sociable that early, wash and shave first.

Except if they are women.

It is perfectly acceptable for a civilized woman to sit at the breakfast table in her nightgown, pensively munching some buttered toast with marmalade while she reads the international papers; she need not wash beforehand. However, the chances of her being alone while she does so are very great indeed, because civilized woman do not gladly associate with strange flatulent types while eating.
Whether or not they are fully dressed at the time.
At breakfast, or any other meal.

I'm just guessing, as I have no actual experience to back it up. Seeing as breakfast, for me, involves a cup of strong coffee and a pipe.
Entirely without flatulence!

By the time I leave the building, I am washed, shaved, dressed.
Ready to socialize, and have another cup of coffee.


During my teens, my father would be up first, and by the time I came down for coffee shortly after seven o'clock, he would be reading either the Volkskrant or the Eindhovens Dagblad, fully dressed, with a clean shirt and a tie. I would have done a haphazard job of shaving (not enough fuzz yet to make a thorough attack on bristles worthwhile), but I would also be fully dressed. Albeit not so well.
I would devour whatever newspaper he had already finished while swilling strong coffee, and neither one of us would talk much.  Mornings, every civilized man knows, are for coffee. Newspapers. Perhaps a smoke. Quiet, and the occasional clinking sound.
And perhaps wishing that there were a civilized woman in a flannel nightgown pensively munching toast to observe out of the corner of one's eyes, while not really talking.

I do not know what women want at that hour. Maybe they would gladly trade in a blessedly silent male companion for a steaming plate of noodles. 
If I were a woman, the noodles would probably give me a far happier feeling, no matter how clean and crisp the man. Because noodles nourish the soul.
Not entirely sure what a man does.

American television advertising is no help on that score. It suggests that the typical male dresses raggedy in the morning, eats greasy sh*t and stacks of sodden flapjacks, and allows an elderly matron to come waltzing in from a nearby farm to lecture him on Folgers Crystals.
Or recommend a brand of syrup.

I'm fairly certain that ain't right.


The only type of person who could propagandize to me at that hour would be a woman considerably younger and more vibrant, perhaps slim and small and intelligent, wearing a flannel nightgown (or cotton pajamas), who would far rather that a brand of good marmalade and strong real coffee were present, than grease-bombs and syrup.

And, if you think about it, the presence of such a person would be a much better breakfast, too.


A PERFECT SOCIAL EVENT

I still wouldn't eat anything. But I would ask if she minded me smoking a pipe. She'd probably indicate that by her it was okay, just open the window a tad.

We would drink our coffee in the quiet of early morning, and devour the newspapers. The only sound would be contemplative munching, and the occasional clink of cups.

And we'd lock the door, so that busybodies or irritating matrons busking products we do not need cannot bust in on us.

We do not wish to be disturbed.


I'm not complaining, though. I've got three of the four.

I've got coffee, marmalade, and pipe tobacco.
A lovely jar of Coopers' Original Oxford.
It's thick cut, and intensely good.

Breakfast is anytime.



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