"Tell me about a breakfast you were once privileged to have. Eggs over easy? Grapefruit? One thin slice of toast? Not even that, you ate a pickle—and it never tasted so good. You vowed to eat pickles for breakfast for the rest of your life. Then what happened? Tell me. Be specific."
Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away


I had a regular routine of getting up early enough so that I could go to Tony's before work. I was addicted to there $2.25 special. The special was two eggs anyway you liked them, one pound of bacon and two pieces of toast that were dipped in melted butter. I usually put back a couple cups of black coffee but that was extra. I was the only state police employee in a mob-run joint but the waitress was just as nice to me as the mobsters at the next table were. It seemed the pound of bacon gave me the energy to face working with the dead. After a few years of this routine meal, extra hours on the job, and too many murders, my blood pressure went the roof. My wife insisted on making me each light cottage cheese and fruit for months, until I started leaving early again for my $2.25 special.