The Tale of the Hotcake of Horror

Stacy tried to poison me yesterday. I stumbled into the kitchen Sunday morning to find a luscious stack of pancakes just sitting there on the shelf, all steamy and warm. They were probably for the kids, I knew; she hadn't even asked me if I wanted any. The nerve!

Fine. If that's how she wanted to play it, I could be just as conniving. She was presently distracted, dealing, no doubt, with some kiddie-crisis and would never notice one little MIA pancake. Bringing to bear years of experience and a singularly focused motivation, I slipped away the purloined pancake in nothing flat, totally undetected. A quick dart to the fridge yielded a surreptitious little dribble of (unfortunately cold) maple syrup down the pancake diameter, and with skills that would make a countercultural doobie-roller proud, rolled myself a mighty fine pancake cigar. Glancing around, I reconnoitred the landscape and convinced myself my plot was as of yet, still undetected. With the thrill that only ill-got gains afford, I feverishly scarfed the fleeced flapjack.

Unfortunately my brain made the connection long before it was able to actually get the "Abort!" message down all the appropriate neural networks. A good two-thirds of the pancake had been savagely inhaled before I was able to get all the right nerves working in tandem with all the right muscles to execute the emergency halt procedure. By the time I had finally finished chewing I knew it was too late. I had consumed the greater part of a whole wheat pancake -- but wait, it gets worse! It wasn't just a whole wheat pancake, but a whole wheat pancake laced generously with mashed up bananas!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Right about then Stacy returned from her battles on the kiddo frontlines to find me gagging and spitting into the sink.

"Did you take a pancake?" she asked. "Those are whole wheat and banana. You won't like them. I'll make you some regular ones if you want."