The door to the tavern bursts open and itkovian strides in calm, and collected. The regulars watch him as he takes a seat in the back corner. Itkovian rests his back against the sturdy walls of the TL inn, studying the other patrons with those dark piercing eyes hidden beneath the shadows of his hood. Slowly the other customers return to their business, and itkovian lights up his pipe. The camera zooms in on the flickering of the burning tobacco, just to emphasize how bad-ass it is, think Aragorn from LotR. A small street urchin walks over to itkovian’s table, the boys hands clasped nervously.
“Sir,” the boy begins carefully, “you have visited this tavern 1000 times.”
“What of it?” itkovian asks.
“Well,” the child hesitates, “a thousand times, and still you have not once said anything useful.”
Iktovian scowls, “useful? What do you know about useful?”
The urchin flinchs, “you have not once contributed something of value. You come in here shouting one-liners or pontificating about ideas there are already a hundred other opinions on, but never once have you given us any knowledge we can take home with us.”
“Fine,” itkovian says leaning forward, a hint of excitement in his eyes. “You want useful? I can give you something more. I can give you life changing.”
Itkovian then begins to transition out of third person and into first, and as I do, pay attention, for what I’m about to tell you is important.
For my one-thousandth post, I give you: peanut butter-banana-honey-cinnamon-toast.
I know the name itself already has a few of you aroused, but calm down and listen to what I have to say. This snack is game-changing, it will revolutionize the way you live. You thought you had life all figured out, but let me tell you “NO!” You weren’t even close, and now your grandma is shaking her head at you for you even thinking you were close. What I’m about to tell you now will get you closer to the meaning of life than you could have imagined in your wildest dreams.
Buckle up your seatbelts, put on your condoms, lower your visors, warp-in your last round of units. Be ready. We’re going in hard and it’s going to be messy.
The ingredients.
Each one is essential.
Peanut butter. This is the glue that holds it all together. If you thought you could make peanut butter-banana-honey-cinnamon-toast without it, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Bread. The carrier, the vessel. This is the most unexciting part of the whole snack, but alas, we need it.
Banana. This is the money-maker. This gives it the smooth, delightful punch. With grace and elegance, the banana counteracts and balances the heavy-handedness of the peanut-butter.
Honey. A perfect glaze to coat everything. This is what keeps your craving.
Cinnamon. This ingredient plays the most subtle roll, but it is a necessary one. It gives that extra kick that prevents you from ever being distracted.
The tools.
Knife. Just a butter-knife. You can use a steak knife if you like to live life dangerously.
Plate. Plate.
Toaster. Bread goes in, toast comes out. You can’t explain that!
The directions.
Array your tools and ingredients on a table before you. It’s always good to know what you’re working with.
Put your bread in the toaster.
I would suggest a mild toasting, not to burnt, just a little browning. For my toaster, that’s like level two on the knob.
Peanut butter comes next. IMPORTANT. Apply convservatively. Peanut-butter is a powerful substance, and if you apply too much this thing is going to start tasting like rhino cock.
Now as I said, carefully…
Careful now… just a little…
We don’t want to overpower it now…
That’s probably peanut-butter enough right there…
You’re going in for another load, I don’t know how I feel about that…
Woa, woa, woa that’s way too much peanut-butter, retreat…
GOD DAMN IT MOTHERFUCKER
Look at what you did!! No, don’t turn away. Look! That is way too much peanut butter.
I don’t think we can even salvage this now.
Fuck it, gimme that we’re starting over.
+ Show Spoiler +
Fuckin amateur.
I told you, you were putting in too much.
But you got a little over-zealous and things got out of hand quickly.
Ok, we’ll just start over. We’ll just pop another slice in the toaster.
…
Damn, this thing is taking a while to toast.
One sec, getting a call from my mom.
Hi mom, no what?-
...
He got it all wrong-
...
No, she didn’t-
...
No, mom-
...
Mom, let me talk god damn it. She told me to bring two types-
...
Yes, two types god damn it. So I brought two types-
...
Yes-
...
Yes-
...
Yeah-
...
No. One was boxed, and the other was in a bag-
...
No, a hefty bag-
...
I don’t think you have the authority to make that decision-
...
You think you can take the morale high ground on this one? Let me tell you, the last thing I want to hear from you is a rant on the ethics of dedication vs commitment. Remember what happened a week ago at Danny’s pizza party?
...
Yeah-
...
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Talk to you later mom-
...
No, later-
...
LATER-
...
Yes, later. Good bye-
...
Love you too.
God damn it, where were we.
Still waiting for this thing to pop? Damn toasters these days..
…
Sorry, about being so mean on you earlier kid.
Everyone makes mistakes, back in my day-
Ope! Nevermind. There it goes, let’s continue these directions shall we…
I told you, you were putting in too much.
But you got a little over-zealous and things got out of hand quickly.
Ok, we’ll just start over. We’ll just pop another slice in the toaster.
…
Damn, this thing is taking a while to toast.
One sec, getting a call from my mom.
Hi mom, no what?-
...
He got it all wrong-
...
No, she didn’t-
...
No, mom-
...
Mom, let me talk god damn it. She told me to bring two types-
...
Yes, two types god damn it. So I brought two types-
...
Yes-
...
Yes-
...
Yeah-
...
No. One was boxed, and the other was in a bag-
...
No, a hefty bag-
...
I don’t think you have the authority to make that decision-
...
You think you can take the morale high ground on this one? Let me tell you, the last thing I want to hear from you is a rant on the ethics of dedication vs commitment. Remember what happened a week ago at Danny’s pizza party?
...
Yeah-
...
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Talk to you later mom-
...
No, later-
...
LATER-
...
Yes, later. Good bye-
...
Love you too.
God damn it, where were we.
Still waiting for this thing to pop? Damn toasters these days..
…
Sorry, about being so mean on you earlier kid.
Everyone makes mistakes, back in my day-
Ope! Nevermind. There it goes, let’s continue these directions shall we…
Ok, so as I said. We peanut-butter this mother fucker gently. Not too much.
Here is what it should look like:
Notice the thin layer of peanut butter. Good.
Now we apply the banana. Open the banana like a gentlemen, from the stubby end. Not the unwieldy and frustrating way you were taught as a kid.
….I can’t believe it took me 18 years to learn to open a banana like this.
Next, cup the banana in your left hand, with half of the banana peel left as a guard between your finger and the banana. Then using your butter-knife, or steak knife, or even a sword if you really want to distinguish yourself, cut down into the peeled side of the banana. The banana peel on the underside should be thick enough to prevent you from cutting yourself.
Perfect, now if you can manage, you should try and lower the banana slice directly down to the toast from with your knife. This transition can be a little frustrating. Like trying to transition to late game on Steppes of War. OH WHAT? YOU LOVE THAT METAPHOR DON’T YOU? HAHA, WONDERFUL. Cover the toast one layer thick in these banana slices.
Honey. Unlike the peanut-butter, don’t be afraid to apply this liberally. The only caution is that honey gets messy quickly. And if you put too much on it’s going to be dripping all over your hands while you eat this.
Finally, the cinnamon. Apply at your own discretion. Not really much you can fuck up here, unless you get to the point where you can measure the amount of cinnamon on your toast in inches.
There! We are finished. I had a few photos of me eating this creation, but sadly I hadn’t shaved in a week, and my depressing college fuzz-stache was imposing itself into every photo. So for my own ego, I’m going to leave those out.
Anyways, you now have a relatively healthy and wholesome snack you can make yourself if you’re not feeling too lazy.
bon appétit motherfuckers
For the sake of continuity, I now begin to transition out of first-person and back into third person. As itkovian finishes his directions, the crowd in the TL inn is silent, stunned at the implications of what they had just been told. Was the key to life so simple? Bread, honey, peanut-butter, bananas and cinnamon. Was this all they needed?
The small child in front of itkovian wipes a tear from his eye. Itkovian pats the urchin on the head, and leans back into his booth satisfied. A man amongst the crowd stands up, his chair tipping over on the wood floor behind him, but he doesn’t even notice. The man begins to clap, a slow cap. Now everyone else in the tavern stands up as well, and they too begin to clap. The clapping is picking up in pace and intensity. And as the cheer climaxes, the crowd goes wild. The women in the tavern shiver in ecstasy, the name “itkovian” whispered from their lips. The men cry, unabashed, and they toss money and coin at itkovian’s table.
itkovian smiles, for he knows the gift he has given them cannot be measured in monetary value. It can only be measured in the kindness of passing the knowledge on to others. Someday, the word will travel the world, and everyone will know about peanut-butter-honey-cinnamon-toast. And all that is wrong in the world will be good again.
Later, after the celebration has run its last throes, itkovian gets on his computer. He googles peanut butter banana honey toast and realizes it’s actually a pretty common thing. So common google actually auto-fills his search half way through typing it. Apparently most people already know about this snack. Fuck it, he’s posting this blog anyway.