We were staying with dear friends this weekend and the culinary climax of the weekend was when we celebrated their son, Ben’s birthday with a brunch of fried chicken and waffles. It was divine. If you have never had waffles and fried chicken TOGETHER, you simply haven’t lived…or been in the south for more than four hours. If you have never tried to make waffles, you wouldn’t know what a victory it is to be able to gently lift a waffle, in it’s entirety, out of a waffle maker. It’s an art, it’s a science and not just any old yahoo can do it. My friend Jay had a growing collection of waffle carcasses in a container next to the waffle maker as he struggled to figure out the waffle making process. He eventually bailed and called a friend for help and to my mind, this is a mature response. But maybe that’s because of the Great Waffle Iron Massacre of 1987.
My Dad is not a giver-upper. If something doesn’t work the first time around, he will noodle on it until he finds a way around his obstacles. He is a problem solver. I have seen him engineer projects of varying proportions to do what he wants to be able to do. I have seen him rig deer hoists, archery wall protectors and genius ways to can meat, to name a few. Only one time in my life have I ever seen my Dad come up against a machine he couldn’t outsmart, a device he couldn’t rig to accomplish his purposes and it was a waffle iron.
My mom and dad received a waffle iron as a wedding present. Waffles seem like a really family-ish type of food and once he had a family, my dad wanted to make them happen. He fired that sucker up one Saturday and followed the directions it came with. Nothing worked like the directions said it would and it was truly frustrating. The iron smoked and stuck and he ended up having to pick out waffle shards with a knife. Since this was only his first attempt, the whole “if at first you don’t succeed” idea was still within reach.
A month or two later the waffle shard memory had faded a tad and my Dad decided to take another run at it. This time, he would use different oil and better batter and watch that thing like a hawk. Sadly, nothing whole emerged from the waffle iron on that day either. It was another failed attempt and my Dad was puzzled. He was doing all new stuff to outsmart this machine and it wasn’t working. He put it back in the cupboard and said something about how we “gotta figure this out.”
From that time forward, my Dad engaged in repetitive, hopeful, warrior-like battles with the waffle iron. Some time would have to go by before his wounds from the last battle would heal but he would eventually belly back up to the bar like a waffle viking. It always ended the same, no matter what new technique or product he implemented. Smoke, waffle shards and cusswords. Every time, my Dad got a little angrier. After a couple of years of this, when Dad would say he was going to give the waffle iron another go, we found other places to be. He just was not going to win. This waffle iron was obviously a joke waffle iron meant to show men that they are not invincible. My Dad wasn’t having it. He would win or…he would destroy.
One ill-fated Saturday, the day of his final waffle battle attempt, we were all as far away from the kitchen as we could get while Dad went through his humiliating ritual one last time. After about half an hour we heard him yelling for us. “Sharleeeeeeen, kiiiiiids! GET OUTSIDE!” Surely he hadn’t been successful. Was the kitchen on fire? We all assembled in the front yard and waited for him to emerge and explain. He came blustering out of the house, waffle iron in hand. We watched him walk to the wood chopping block and set the waffle iron down on it. “What’s happening, honey?” My mom inquired. “What’s happening, my dear, is that this waffle iron is now going to die” he replied. “Now back up, guys”. We all backed up about ten feet while my Dad reached for the axe. He then proceeded to hack to smithereens the only problem in his life that he couldn’t solve while we stood there as wide eyed witnesses. Springs went flying, big chunks of waffle metal bent with each blow and I remember thinking that it must have felt so good to do that. I am certain it was therapeutic for him to ceremoniously vanquish his enemy and to, at the same time, eliminate any possibility of a re -engagement.
I learned a lot about manhood in that moment. I learned that if a problem solving man cannot solve a problem, he would rather destroy all evidence that there ever was a problem than to just toss it in the trash and say, “oh well”. Not good enough. It must be obliterated from the universe and not lurking in a cabinet somewhere, enticing him into another go round. He knows he’s beat but he doesn’t care to be reminded.
My Dad has never looked back. I am a successful waffle maker (this baffles my Dad) and I have tried to walk him through the process so that he might start again. He’s not biting. Dad, thanks for teaching me that there is one thing that you can’t do and then removing all evidence of it.
Our family will never forget the Great Waffle Massacre of 1987.
