Avocado for Breakfast
‘That’s another thing, right. Everyone that roles up on you with some sort of nonsense statement is never affected by it. Know what I mean?’
Sadly, tragically and regretfully, I knew what he meant. Any effort made to slow him down or stop him now would be beyond wasted. There was no pulling this one back. The last ten minutes had been an unmitigated disaster. An absolute masterclass in the straw breaking the camel’s back and a prime candidate for occasions when I was glad that my hearing isn’t as good as it ought to be.
‘Sure. If you say so, mate.’
My mistake, as grotesque and unforgivable as this is, was that I happened to mention an article I read where some journalist rated various breakfasts in terms of healthiness. That was all. I didn’t even go into it that much. Just an inane bit of information to fill the silence. Little did I know I had lit the touch paper on the powder keg.
‘Aye, I do say so, right?’ Man, he looks angry. ‘I do. That’s everything that’s wrong, eh? Isn’t it? Isn’t it?’
‘I’ve just agreed, man. Calm yourself right down.’
His eyes were wide and his face animated. A man less prone to kindness would inform him that not once in his vicious onslaught of furious anger and garbled half-sentences had he come even close to making a sensible point. I emptied the other half of my pint down my throat and went to the bar without telling him why. We’d be drinking for a good few hours now so I assumed he’d know what was up. When the drinks were ready I took one glance back at the angry man at my table and decided that I needed to use the toilet all of a sudden as well. Just a bit of respite.
‘See, this is what the problem is…’
This is before I’ve even gotten myself back into my seat fully. Before I’ve settled myself in and made myself comfy. This is after hanging back a bit just to build up my resolve. He just carries right back on as though I hadn’t left in the first place. I may as well have hit the pause button on a film and then restarted it.
‘Tell me what the problem is, then. Because I’m not really following you.’
Nice. Smooth. Poke the bear. Always a good idea.
‘The problem is that some smarmy git who probably wears a tie to work every day just gets to sit down and write off millions of people without ever meeting them. That’s not right. You cannae just do that.’
‘How’s he writing these people off?’
‘Saying their breakfast’s unhealthy. It’s in a paper and that as well, so maybe someone was already eating theirs and then saw he’d given it four out of ten.’
He says this as though it were the biggest indignity and disrespect a man could inflict on another human being. The scandal in his tone makes it seem as though this dude has booted in every front door in the greater Lothian area and judged people right to their faces.
‘What difference does it make?’ I ask.
‘What difference?’ He is incredulous. ‘What difference? There’s just no need. At all. Why would you even do that, eh? What’s the point?’
‘Why are you even so angry about it?’
‘Just noises me up, that’s all. Some snot nosed prick getting paid to tell me a fry up isn’t a healthy meal.’
‘You shouldn’t need a newspaper to tell you that, bud.’
‘A ken, but it’s no the point, is it?’
I have completely lost track of what point he is trying to make. If there is one skulking somewhere deep in the undergrowth of this nonsense I have literally zero inclination to drag it out into the open.
‘Aye. Sure. Whatever.’
‘What else was on the list?’
He must feel his powers of fury waning. He demands more fuel for his outrage. “Feed me more.”, he seems to scream, “validate my anger.” I know this is going to end badly, but I really can’t help myself. I swear, your honour, I could not stop it from happening.
‘There was one on there that I found a bit strange…’ I let the statement hang.
‘Aye? What was it.’
He’s leaning on the table: – a coiled spring ready to explode straight back up to full power. He has no idea just how good this is going to be. He will love how much he hates it. I almost consider not even telling him, but the reaction will be far too good to pass up.
‘Avocado.’
‘What you saying? Avocado? They wee lime looking things?’
The trap is set. The bait has been placed inside. And he is about to jump into it face first.
‘Aye. On whole-wheat toast.’
I can see his mind working. It’s taking him a second. He thinks that I’ve gone off topic. He reckons I must be trying to change the subject. Slowly, with dawning horror, he realises what I’m saying. He’s literally changed colours in front of me. Aghast does not cover this reaction.
‘As breakfast?’
He asks me this so softly that I almost want to pretend I was making it up. He seems so genuinely disgusted at the thought. Am I that much of a monster that I want to inform him that he shares this world with people who have avocado on toast as their breakfast? Yes. Of course I am.
‘Aye man.’ I decide to twist the knife. ‘It was the best rated. Healthiest by a long way, so he said.’
‘No way. No chance. Not having it.’
‘Doesn’t matter if you’re having it or not. Someone is. Probably someone pretty healthy.’
‘Nah. Nae chance. Nae danger someone is getting up and thinking, “Hmmm, I’m pretty hungry the day. I’m right peckish for some avocado”. That doesn’t happen.’ He looks desperate. ‘Does it?’
‘Apparently so. Don’t forget the whole-wheat toast.’
‘Whole-wheat toast?!’ You’d think I’d dropped my pants and curled one out on his doorstep. ‘Do these people just exist to annoy me? You tell me. Tell me. In what world is someone taking the time to do that? Who has the time or the energy to whip up that as a breakfast, eh? I’ll tell you who. Some suburban middle-class yuppie wannabe posers, that’s who. Some utter cretin who probably eats quiche and drinks prosecco.’
Now we are getting somewhere. ‘What’s wrong with quiche?’ I ask. ‘Prosecco is alright as well, for what it is.’
‘Not the point. Stop getting me distracted…’
‘Hang on,’ I interrupt. ‘… tell me what is wrong with quiche. There’s nought wrong with that. You cannae just go off on one and start dragging everything down to the same level.’
‘I guess it’s OK.’ He admits, grudgingly. ‘And Prosecco isn’t really all that bad. Bit poofy, like, but tastes decent.’
‘So why you going in on other innocent foods then, eh? The innocent will suffer along with the guilty, is that your game?’
Someone tell me why I’m prolonging this. Why are we even friends? Oh, that’s right. Exactly for evenings like this. You tell me one other person that would nearly have a cardiac episode over someone else breakfast and then admit that you wouldn’t want to spend time with them.
‘Fine, fine. I’m sorry about the quiche and prosecco, eh? No need for that.’
He’s actually apologised. This is better than I ever could have hoped. I swear this boy is wired to the moon. As newly elected representative for snobby foodstuffs everywhere, I accept the humble apology with all the good grace and manners that befit a man in my position: –
‘Aye, well don’t let it happen again.’ He’s cooled off to a mad simmer. I take a sip and then another dig. ‘So, you gonna be trying it as your next breakfast then?’
‘Whit?! If I ever have that then you can kill me because I’m already dead.’ Shakespeare wept. ‘No chance would I go with that. Not a single time. Not even as a joke.’
‘Who has breakfast as a joke?’ I ask.
‘Same sort of prick that has avocado.’
He says this with the smug self-assurance of a man who has just won the debate in one fell swoop. To my shame, this logic is so bizarre that I have no counter. I am shackled, as ever, by the fact that I exist only in the real world and not some fourth-dimension Vietnam flashback as he does. We’re coming at this from two different angles here and neither has a footing in the other’s reality.
‘Why even get so wound up about it though?’ I asked.
‘I dunno. It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. You reckon it’s fun getting angry over something like this?’
‘Why else would you do it all the time?’
‘What do you mean, “all the time”? What else annoys me like this then?’
For a second, I consider not telling him. For one minute iota of time, I listen to the small voice somewhere deep inside my brain that’s trying to tell me it isn’t worth the aggravation. Then I ignore it and reel them off for him.
‘Well. There was the time you found out cyclists don’t pay road tax. Then that road tax isn’t even a thing any more. Then when someone mentioned that folk living alone get a council tax discount. When I said I’d never seen Pulp Fiction was a nuclear level meltdown, complete with forcible watching.’
‘Aye.’ He looked proud. ‘And I stand by them all.’
‘How about when you didn’t understand how taxes work and were sure your company was giving you a raise to push you into the higher tax bracket so they could pay you less?’
‘I ken, man, but it just seemed dodgy, eh?’
‘I spent an hour explaining it to you…’
‘Ken. You had diagrams and sums and that.’
‘That still keeps me up at night.’
‘Well, I get it now anyway. So what your saying is I don’t kick off that much after all then?’ He sounded as though he actually believed it.
‘What about the politics fiasco?’ I asked.
‘What politics fiasco?’
‘You know what I’m on about.’
‘No.’ He totally did. ‘I don’t.’
‘You wouldn’t shut up about it all of a sudden. Probably just watched Newsnight pished one night and came in here fancying yourself as a spin-doctor and top-tier analyst. Spouting absolute nonsense about policies that made no sense and politicians that were already dead.’
‘So what? I cannae have an opinion now, eh? Is that the script?’
‘Then someone asked you who you voted for, remember?’
‘Aye.’ He sat up straighter in his seat. ‘And what?’
‘And you admitted that you hadn’t even realised there was an election on…’ he went to interrupt but I held up a hand to silence him, ‘…and then said you weren’t even registered because, and I quote: – “That’s for benders.”’
He was trying not to smile while pretending to be upset still. It had been an unmitigated nonsense for all involved but once he had heard the laughter start, he had simply pretended that the whole thing was a joke from the start. A smart man able to adapt to the situation. Only I knew that he had been sincere. He finally mustered up a response.
‘Pint?’
Now that was a question we could both agree on without any issues. Happy days all around. He made his way to the bar and left me mercifully alone. Despite the constant back and forth and the inevitable rise in blood pressure, there were very few hours that I spent happier than sitting right here waiting on him to come out with the next ludicrous statement.
When he returned, he sat himself down and spoke in what I can only imagine he thought was a diplomatic tone. It sounded like the voice a mother would use for an errant child.
‘Look, let’s have no more about the politics or the avocado thing, eh?’
‘Sound by me, bud.’
‘Oh, did I mention that I actually had it once?’
‘Had what once?’ I asked.
‘Avocado for breakfast. Some restaurant was doing it.’
‘And how was it?’
‘It was pretty good actually, man. You should try it sometime.’
He said this without a trace of irony and with the frank openness of a man who is not aware that he is accidentally hilarious. Trying to marry up his rant with this confession was making my head hurt. Resisting the urge to smash my glass over my own head, I forced a smile and made a mental note never to revisit this topic of conversation ever again, on pain of death.
