Every now and then, there will come or has come a time in your life in which you are blessed with a story that you will never, ever forget. A moment of your life, forever immortalized by spoken word and, for this particular story, written word.
My dear readers, I am gifting you with the story of The Waffle Incident.
To set the scene: February 2014, Chicago, Illinois. Nikki and I are returning to Chicago and introducing Pam to the city, hoping it would capture her heart the way it holds ours. We’d spent the entirety of the day crawling up and down the streets, letting the sidewalks and crosswalks take us wherever they decided.
It was late at night and we were coming up from a bar on the Streeterville end and we come to my favorite, yet least favorite part of Chicago. The bridge of Michigan Avenue is a long walk, usually crowded, and terribly open in its feeling. My fear of heights and drowning makes this walk over the Chicago River constantly nerve inducing. Pam, right from the beginning, thought this was hilarious and would taunt me nearly every single time we had to cross the bridge (which, if you’ve been to Chicago, you know is quite a bit).
This crossing, however, would be different.
We embark from the southern end of the bridge, coming up from Millenium Park and Pam begins to sing “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water” at me with an alcohol buzzed glee. I don’t remember what I said to her, but I know it wasn’t flattering. I don’t know what she would have said in response because, at that precise moment, a car flies by us, girls shrill screams as they hang out of the windows and something strikes Pam. We all stop, terrified to know what Pam (who was in her Michigan State University Band Jacket) was just hit with and if she is okay. After checking her over and are satisfied with the absence of any residue on the jacket, curiosity sets in.
What in the hell was she just hit with?
Now mind you, I was already laughing because, by this point, the bitch deserved anything short of something lethal, but then we discovered a thawed, but clearly not cooked Eggo waffle lying innocently on the sidewalk.
I was reduced to gasping, ugly, crying laughter. I could not breathe, could not see, could not function besides guffawing at the ridiculousness of the situation. The pure whimsical joy in the way that the world in all its glory decided to silence Pam and her horrible taunting.
Every crossing of that bridge, from that trip on and for every trip in the future, I can promise we will be chuckling the whole way over and maybe, if I’m feeling generous, I’ll warn Pam if I see any girls in taxis who look like they may have any other breakfast foods on hand.
Lemons and Spoons 