News

I started to feel a little fuzzy and realized I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I thought, okay, I’ve got one chapter rewritten I’ll get some food before tackling the main part of the sex rewrite. You need fuel for that kind of thing. So, I walked over to the main part of the house away from the offices.

I got a vitamin bar and some water. I checked in with Carri, my assistant, and Mary, and well, everyone. Trinity, our daughter was watching Top Gear on the telly. She’s still off from school for the summer. As I’m eating my bar I think to ask, "Trinity did you have breakfast?"

"No," she said.

"Eat something," I said.

She gets up and starts rummaging in the cupboard. I go back to the far offices to talk to Mary. Get my question answered and walk back through the kitchen. Carri is brewing a fresh pot of tea, and I see my daughter has buttered both sides of a piece of bread. I think, "Oh, that’s interesting, she buttered both sides." Then out of the corner of my eye as I keep walking towards the offices I see her plug in the toaster.

That little voice in my head goes, "That’s not right." I stop, turn, and say out loud, "Trinity are you going to put that buttered piece of bread in the toaster?"

She nods.

"No," I say, "you don’t put buttered bread in the toaster."

"Why not?" she asks.

"Because the butter drips down and gets rancid and will give you all kinds of botulism and stuff."

Carri chimes in, "You don’t butter the bread first."

Trinity looks a little embarrassed, then grins, then laughs at the whole sitatuon. She looks a little sadly at her perfectly buttered piece of bread, but she opens the trash and drops it in. She gets a second piece of bread, unbuttered, and puts it along with another unbuttered piece in the toaster.

If I had not walked into the kitchen at just that moment that piece of buttered bread would have gone into the toaster. We’d have been smelling burnt butter for days. Trinity is still laughing about it. I’m just glad I made the mother’s saving throw on that particular moment. Now my child knows how to make toast without either setting the kitchen on fire, or giving herself food poisoning. This is a good skill to have.

Now I’m back in my office with water, a fresh cup of hot tea, and a sex scene to rewrite. To say that the toast incident sort of threw me out of that mindset is an understatement, but I’m still glad I was there to make the catch for my daughter. It’s left me smiling if not quite in the right mood for the rewrite.