Breakfast can become a sensitive subject

This is the last of a two-part series about the word breakfast.

Garnet was seated at the picnic table at Campsite 59-D in Conconully State Park with a hint of stress in her posture. I was returning with a limit of trout and kokanee after four hours of fishing.

“Hi Babe,” I said. “Enjoying the morning air?”

“I’m locked out,” she said. “I’ve been sitting here for three and a half hours.”

Well, I was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“I decided to come out and enjoy the early morning sights and air, and I shut the door,” she said. “When I tried it a few minutes later, it was locked. I’ve been sitting here for three and a half hours.”

Well, at this point I was shocked and not able to express my feelings in words, which is an exceptional event no matter the circumstances.

The door was quickly unlocked with the keys in my pocket. There on the counter were Garnet’s keys.

“Why didn’t you…?” was my thought, but I knew better than to voice what I was thinking. We made three full sets of keys before this trip, so a set was available at all times.

The thought was for each of us to have one set on our person at all times and one in the Ram. I was about to mention the extra set of keys, but I knew better. My set was with me and the Ram, too. The only set available to Garnet was on the counter inside the locked trailer.

Garnet continued to describe her ordeal, all three and a half hours of it, but I wasn’t listening so much. This discourse continued for several minutes, perhaps half an hour.

“Well, Babe,” I said. “What should we fix for breakfast?”

“BREAKFAST?” my usually soft-spoken wife said in an elevated voice. “You want me to fix BREAKFAST after spending three and a half hours outside our trailer?”

The word breakfast was not mentioned again for the next 90 minutes. However, Garnet’s three and a half hours of being locked out of the trailer was experienced, one minute at a time.

She mentioned watching the osprey we had seen several times in the days before, plus a bald eagle and a couple of deer. She also recapped, minute by minute, the act of being cold. The fact about the clouds building and becoming more rain-like was especially emphasized.

“I even waved a white towel at you when I could see you,” she said. “And I waved the flag several times, didn’t you see me?”

My first reaction was to make light of the situation by making a joke, but I knew better. I held back a chuckle, almost choking in the process, and had to turn my back to her for fear she would see me snickering.

Finally, after 90 minutes, she paused. It was my time to react.

“Well, how about after breakfast, we go for a drive?” I said.

“BREAKFAST?” she said in the same or louder elevated voice. “You want me to fix BREAKFAST after spending four hours outside our trailer?”

I noticed the increase in the time spent outside the trailer, but didn’t say a word. I knew better.

We, our 4-pound chihuahua Brenda Starr was on my lap at this time, were subjected to another 90 minutes of the same or similar minute-by-minute account of Garnet’s time outside the trailer. Brenda didn’t help one bit, because at specific times, she would look at me and growl.

“I couldn’t get inside to check on Brenda,” Garnet said. And Brenda looked at me and growled.

“What if Brenda needed help of some kind?” Garnet said. “I would be inches away, but not able to help.” And Brenda looked at me and growled.

“What took you so long to get here after you passed by and saw me sitting on the picnic table?” she asked.

“I needed to check the hours of the Sit‘N Bull, to send a story to the paper,” I said.

“I have been locked out of the trailer for four and a half hours and you go to the TAVERN?” The increase of my wife’s voice, to emphasize certain words, began to concern me.

Each rendition of the events occurring this day increased the time Garnet spent outside. Actually, three and a half hours was the appropriate time, as I left the trailer at 5:30 and returned at around 9.

I was about to change my wording from breakfast to lunch, as it was now early afternoon, but I knew better. Any mention of food or a meal would surely provoke an unpleasant memory for Garnet, not to mention my torture of having to experience another minute-by-minute account of her suffering.

I have resisted saying the word breakfast, even weeks later. Instead words such as first meal of the day and the meal before lunch are used. Seems safer and more prudent from my point of view.

Just the other day Garnet was recounting the story to a friend when she said, “And I was outside the trailer for six hours.”

Any person with guts would have stepped up to her and corrected the hours involved, but I knew better.