The Daughter's Story

I’m a writer. Published? No. Will I ever be published? It’s possible. Regardless of whether or not I ever experience that happy fortune, writing is an integral part of who I am, and I am compelled to put thoughts to paper. Short stories, novels, letters to friends, poetry, journal entries, it honestly makes no difference to me the medium I use to express myself. As long as I’ve written something at the end of the day, I’m content.

At the moment, however, I am not content.

Currently, I’m in the process of writing a number of stories (5? 6?) that could each turn out to be either novels or novellas. Additionally, each story offers its own cast of characters with the possibility of some of them making appearances in the other plots as well. One more thing to add is that I have no set era in which any of these stories will occur. I’d like them to each be in their own time period and have their own culture, but if I plan on sharing characters, then I have to come up with a resolution/explanation as to how a Japanese feudal-era assassin happens to turn up in downtown Boston in the new millennium.

It’s agitating to me when I have so many prompts and ideas rocketing through my head. I write each down as it comes to me, but that’s not nearly enough. I want to expand upon each item, try to capture an event as it unfolds or portray a character’s persona, in exactly the same way as it first manifests itself to me. I’m usually on the ball when it comes to this sort of thing, and happy with the finished product even if it’s a measly paragraph. With so many conflicting plots and characters, however, things are getting jumbled somewhere between my brain and the keyboard.

I have the polar opposite of writer’s block.

My rebuttal against myself has been to go on hiatus. I feel as though a chance to breathe and clear my mind of all the mumbo-jumbo is the most beneficial thing I can do to solve this vexation. Now I have all this extra time on my hands, don’t I?

Story time.

A few years back, a sharp girl of 16 came home from her after-school job. She was a cashier at the local grocery store, and the school-day and following work-shift had been rather hectic. She was, therefore, maybe not as sharp as she usually was.

On the kitchen counter sat a toaster accompanied by the butter and jam dishes. “Waffles for supper tonight!” Her mother called from her parent’s bedroom, where she was busily ironing some freshly cleaned laundry.

The girl was fine with this. She went to the freezer and peered inside, looking for frozen waffles. The first thing she took notice of was a clear, plastic bag of waffle-shaped foodstuffs. They were a tad misshapen, and a bit on the frosty side, but the girl shrugged it off. Her mother liked to make exorbitant amounts of food and always seemed to freeze some of it for later meals.

Pulling one waffle-ish item from the bag, the girl examined it closer. Under the frost it was an odd brownish color, and was speckled with flecks of white. The shape itself was rather unsettling: there were no griddle marks on its surface, and the edges were asymmetrical no matter which way it was turned.

Oh well. Too tired to complain about the aesthetics of a waffle, the girl dropped it in the toaster’s mouth. Upon pressing the side lever down, the girl discovered that the waffle did not entirely fit into its slot. Half of it was still sticking out! She stared blankly at it for a moment. What had her mother been thinking to make the waffles this big?

Sigh. She’d just have to toast the other side after the first was done.

A minute later, as the lever shot the half-cooked waffle upwards, the girl had already pulled out a plate to place her supper on. Another surprise was yet to meet her. As she pinched the still frozen end of quick bread between her thumb and index finger, a slight sizzle met her ears. This time her brows furrowed, turning her exhausted, vacant expression into one of irritation. Now the toaster had shorted itself out!

As she brought the waffle out of the appliance, a mumbled, “What the…?” left the girl’s mouth. The bottom half of the waffle was soggy, the frost gone, and the strange, mottled color of it more pronounced.

“Mom!” The girl yelled in exasperation, “What kind of waffle is this?” It was after nine o’clock, and the girl still had homework to finish, most of it due in her morning classes the next day. She didn’t have time to waste on cooking exotic waffles.

“What do you mean?” The creak of the ironing board being shut away nearly overrode her mother’s response.

The girl poked at the waffle. “It’s all soggy, and half of it didn’t even fit in the toaster! It’s still frosty!”

“Oh, they should have been thawed out by now.”

Thawed out?

“How can they thaw if they’re in the freezer?”

“Did you use the ones on the back counter?”

Slowly, with a sinking sense of mild horror, the girl turned around to find a box of purchased waffles near the coffee pot. In a bright yellow box. In plain view.

So what was she holding now?

At that moment the girl’s mother entered the kitchen. The girl held up the unidentified object in her hand. It was almost a weary gesture. “What is this?”

The girl has never seen her mother laugh as hard as she did that night.

After a few pleading “what’s” from the girl, the girl’s mother finally managed to choke out the embarrassing answer. “It’s a hamburger patty!”

The next day at school, the girl told her cousin of same age about the event that had occurred the night before. This was done in complete confidence that the story wouldn’t be repeated. The girls were enrolled in a small school, their graduating class had a total of 49 pupils, and it didn’t take two class periods before most of them knew of the girl’s culinary blunder. She went through the rest of her high school career as being the girl who mistook a hamburger patty for a waffle.

End of story. Tragic, no?

Let’s get back to the point: I have an awful lot of time on my hands now that I’m not concerning myself with lengthy, epic plots involving dynamic, multifaceted characters.

I’m going to start the process of improving my culinary skills, and this blog will serve as my documentation. I’ll post pictures when available, the recipe I followed, and the avenues I explored while making it. Heck, if I fancy it, I may even put up a video every now and then.

The Barkeep’s Daughter has many a story to tell. By turns inspirational and uplifting, morose and sobering, each has an appropriate place and purpose in her life, and she hopes, in yours.

With that, let the adventure commence!