By Garrison Frost

They will rise again, the Breakfast Eaters, as they always do, each Saturday and Sunday morning, in the early-but-not-too-early hours. They will rise again and don shockingly overpriced casual wear (college sweatshirts, hats with logos, expensive sunglasses, the latest styles from the Nike store), and again pile out of their ego castles (designed to somehow resemble the modest cottages that dot the Mediterranean coast but are in fact 30 times that size) and climb into their off-road vehicles (with names vaguely reminiscent of long departed North American Indian tribes) and head toward the Breakfast Places.

They will go to the Breakfast Places, the Places Where Everyone Goes, places that have Great Muffins, or The Best Pancakes, or Huge Omelets – but really just have muffins, pancakes and omelets. Most of the Breakfast Places have patios, and the Breakfast Eaters will run to any of the Breakfast Places with patios, even if they don't actually end up eating on the patio. Very often they will rush to the Breakfast Place With The Patio and choose, in the end, to eat inside – where it is warm, where bugs don't fly into their food, where transients don't walk up to their table and ask for scraps. Yes, the list of reasons not to eat on the patio is long and convincing but nonetheless nothing but self-deception because, in the end, the Breakfast Eaters know that they really do want to be on the patio, even if it means freezing, and eating bugs and having to ignore the homeless.

And why wouldn't the Breakfast Eaters sit on the patio? This is, after all, what they waited for. This is why they stood – or if they were lucky, squeezed onto the uncomfortable white plastic chairs – and waited for hours and hours either in the freezing cold or increasingly scorching morning sun, begging, pleading with the dull-eyed high school girl manning the Clipboard to tell them where on the list they were, how much longer would they have to wait, all the while agonizing over the fairness of those lucky ones on the patio lingering over their meals, ordering yet another cup of coffee. After all this waiting, these people deserve the patio. They have earned the patio. This is, after all, California, and they are all about nature there, so it must be their dedicated right to eat their Great Muffins, Best Pancakes and Huge Omelets under god's blue sky.

Heaven forbid the Breakfast Eaters depart for this ultimate meal without their things – their laptop, cell phone, personal organizer – the things that go beep and buzz and light up and help them communicate with other Breakfast Eaters around the world, some so far that they aren't even eating breakfast but rather eating lunch or dinner, and some so far that they are eating breakfast, but doing so yesterday or tomorrow. The things help the Breakfast Eaters make the most of breakfast – help them turn the Patio into an office or a living room or a bank or whatever. One must not merely eat at the Breakfast Place With The Patio. At the very least, one must bring the newspaper. If it rests unopened on the table while one gabs away on one's cell phone, well that's just fine with the Breakfast Eater.

Oh, and while we consider the things that the Breakfast Eater not break their fast without, let us not forget the dog, the prize possession of the Breakfast Eater, and not just any dog but a giant beast of an animal, so huge as to appear to be not of this earth, a giant dog, a Hound of the Baskervilles, a Dog The Size Of A Horse. And while Breakfast Eaters will almost always prefer to keep their Sport Utility Dog by the table on the patio, right by their side to help them finish off the Best Pancakes or the Huge Omelet, some prefer to leave the Dog/Horse tied to a pole or parking meter out front, so it can mingle with those waiting for the coveted patio table, so it can continue to represent the Breakfast Eater in the line, so it can continue to assert the Breakfast Eater's dominance over the line just as he is now dominating the patio with his cell phone, laptop and unopened newspaper.

And when the dog barks, it barks at the Coffee Drinkers, those who need not breakfast, but merely a few minutes in the local chain coffee store to pick up their extra large half-caf/caf mocha something-or-other with space left for cream and sugar.

Indeed, the Breakfast Eater laments, the Coffee Drinkers will ruin everything someday.

(Sept. 1, 2004)

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