John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Pancakes and Patience

Pancakes and patience.

Back from last family dinner before our son was college bound.

We shared –despite protestations–an assortment of random funny stories of when Johnny was younger. One of mine was when he was about 4 years old and we were sitting at an IHOP and our order was taking a very long time. It was Johnny’s first trip to IHOP and he was hungry for pancakes and wanted to try all the different syrups.

After he asked again how long it would be until the waitress brought our pancakes, I responded: “Johnny, this is a good opportunity for us to learn patience.”

Johnny’s head whipped around angrily and glaring at me he said in a frustrated voice, “I don’t want to ever learn patience!! Patience is bad!!”

I leaned back in my chair and said, “Yeah, I know what you mean. I”d rather have the pancakes that learn patience too.”

I’m not sure either of us has learned a lot about patience since then  either. But we at least considered it briefly 14 years ago.