I Opened the biscuit tin at precisely eleven-thirty-two this morning, as I have done every weekday for the past three years, expecting to find my usual elevenses companion nestled in its familiar spot. Instead: nothing but crumbs and the faint ghostly scent of vanilla.
I know, right? I do know that having an existential crisis about biscuits is perfectly normal. It is a problem faced by many people who have avoided the great grocery shop debacle. And by people who eat more biscuits than they do go shopping.
I remember once, a similar crisis where I realised I had to walk home. It was late, early one morning and I had no money for buses that weren’t running. And taxi drivers weren’t intersted in my copy of The Beano.
Ah, I digest…
Yes, the custard creams or the lack of them. So, I stared into the empty tin with the kind of dread that only a person with coffee and no custard creams could possibly experience. There was a loud CRASH!!! Nothing fell in the kitchen. It was merely the shattering of my illusions of munching on a cream-filled biscuit while sipping my brew,
It is not an exaggeration or too much to say, my Wednesday disappeared into chaos. If you find it, could you please return it? Thank you.
Now readers, interestingly, I had a dream last night about swimming through treacle while trying to reach a telephone that kept ringing. Woke up with that sticky feeling of unfinished business clinging to my thoughts. Now I’m wondering if the empty biscuit tin is somehow connected - the universe’s way of saying pay attention, something’s shifted.
I told myself to get a grip. There were local shops. I could go and replenish the biscuit tin. With biscuits, not grips. I don’t know why I’d go to the shop for grips.
Funny how the absence of something so small can throw everything else into sharp relief. The morning light streaming through the kitchen window suddenly seems more intense. The sound of next door’s radio more intrusive. Even the kettle’s whistle carries a note of accusation: “You should have checked yesterday.”
I made a brave decision, readers. The braveness of which, you WILL find quite remarkable, given my biscuit crisis. I opened the fridge and selected that other great saviour… A Penguin bar.
Oh yes. What a luxury (possibly not for the penguin). A Elevenses Penguin bar. Sublime. And it made the lack of custard creams tolerable. And easier.
And while I sipped my Penguin bar and munched my coffee (eh?) I thought the corner shop will have custard creams.
This crisis has a solution. I simply need to take a stroll to the shop.
Or maybe I’m overthinking the biscuit situation and I should enjoy my coffee and Penguin and leave it at that.
How does a penguin make pancakes? With its flippers.
That WASN’T ME. It was on the wrapper of my bar.