Winning this bet on breakfast could be worse than losing it

Published 1:30 am Sunday, September 18, 2016

Breakfast at Denny’s is a cultural touchstone. When I realized that neither of my children had ever been to Denny’s I felt like a bad American. So one morning I clipped a coupon from the paper, rolled the kids out of bed early, and surprised them with the news that we were going out for breakfast.

When we slid into the booth my son immediately reached for the adult menu. He’s 11 years old but can pass for 10 and is at that tricky age between menus. Every time we go to a restaurant we have the same argument.

I pushed the kid’s menu forward. “You can order from this. It’s the same food, but with smaller portions.”

“You said I could order whatever I want!”

“You can, but … Fine. Order from the adult’s menu. It will probably be way too much food.”

“You wanna bet?” He had that gleam in his eyes ’tweens get when they want to prove an adult wrong.

“Sure.” I held out my hand to shake. “Three dollars.”

“You’re on.” He shook my hand so hard we almost knocked over my coffee mug.

Ten minutes later the waitress brought my daughter the Jr. Grand Slam and my son the full size original: one stack of pancakes, two pieces of bacon, two links of sausage and two eggs, sunny side up.

I felt full just looking at that many calories. “Do you really think you can eat all of that?”

My son gripped his fork with determination. “Just watch me.”

Sitting there at that Denny’s booth I knew that this moment was going down in the annals of family history. The knife scraped the plate as my sixth-grader sliced through pancakes. By the time I was done eating my own meal, he had polished off the eggs and breakfast meat and was two pancakes away from glory.

“Whoa!” his sister said in awe. “You’re really doing it.”

“Uh, huh.” It was hard to understand his reply since his mouth was full of pancakes. But I noticed that his rate of chewing had considerably slowed. A greenish tinge spread across his cheeks.

“You don’t have to eat all of it,” I cautioned. “I don’t want you to be sick.”

My son swallowed and pointed at his plate. “I can do it. Only five more bites to go.” Five gigantic bites. Humongous, really. Bites so big they deserved their own ZIP code. “I can eat more than the kid’s menu.” My son shoveled another bite onto his spoon, but didn’t put it into his mouth. “See?”

“I see,” I agreed. “But we can call the bet off now if you want to.”

“Good.” My son let his spoon clatter to the table. “Because I think I’m going to throw up.”

Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two, and author of the book “Genesis Girl.”

Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, Twitter @jennbardsley or at teachingmybabytoread.com.