Let's Brunch This Thing

It's Sunday.
I wake, my hair a tangled mess, sticking persistently to my face.
My boyfriend snores beside me on the sliver of bed my sleeping form has allowed him, a result of an unspoken and unconscious slumber-diplomacy.
A quick hair comb, an eyeliner refresh and I return to my recently stirred boyfriend. Groggily, he wakes.
"Let's brunch this thing."

We'd wake on a typical Sunday morning to a rainy, Vancouver morning. Or rather, afternoon.
It is a not infrequent occurrence that we lose the morning hours altogether. Between my regular 8:30-5pm work routine and his 5pm-1am restaurant chaos, what little time we have is sleep deprived and few and far between. But Sundays are that magical vacation when our impossibly opposing schedules align. Thus, our brunch tradition was born - the perfect commencement to our mutually savored day of coupledom; a decadent rousing from those first solid hours of deep, weekend sleep.

I'm lucky that the somewhat "girly" breakfast/lunch substitute has never been an endeavor requiring girlfriendly arm-twisting. My Spanish boyfriend is a specimen without brunch bias. Having no societal Sex & the City background influence to taint his impression, and an additional genetically ingrained love of food, I'd found a veritable jackpot inclined towards my brunchy whims.

What with the infrequency of dining out together our lifestyles permit, brunch became a time of treating, and the Pinnacle Hotel's dining room fits the bill to perfection. Within lazy walking distance of our apartment, at a price point that is close to
or withing budget constraints, and at a level of luxury that we rarely indulged in, it became the trifecta of mid-morning meal magnificence.

As such, we embark upon our almost weekly haunt.
The room is busy to say the least, having arrived well before the cruel 2pm cut-off of this precious alimentary opportunity. No booth to speak of is free, save for the large one in the corner occupied by only a more than slightly sneering "Reserved" sign. I reluctantly resign myself to the notion that I will not be reclining into the smooth embrace of the red leather bench. We take the table near the window, my brunch sensibilities appeased by the pleasingly laid settings and fresh orchid that adorns the table.
(It is worth noting that this tragic location-based seating issue escapes any level of awareness from my boyfriend, a gentleman of more sane and less flammable sensibilities.)

I'm the first to notice the change at the table across from us. Three adult chairs exchanged for high-chairs. Together. In a row.
I am baffled as to how he doesn't see it and point out the development.

"So?" he asks.

So?
I fight my almost sexist take-away, but it's such a dude question I'm expecting a follow-up about how all shoes look the same.
I adore children, but having daycare-based work experience, I am well aware of the chain reaction of tiny humans when together.

The little ones arrive and disperse to their chairs from the caring hands of their parents. I'm immediately endeared by their adorable pudginess and impossibly tiny clothes, yet instinctively my ears brace for an auditory blow that I know is inevitable.

"I don't get it," he says, "they have their own crayons and sheets. They'll be fine."

Oh, the sweet naivete! Little does he know the ammunition these lovable projectors have been equipped with. They are not supplied with implements of invention, but waxy articles of dispute.

The first crayon hits the floor as if in slow motion, and as the dominoes fall my deja vu engages. I flash back to my days with the 35 rug-rats I enjoyed so much and the volume level that seemed of a greater magnitude than their miniature frames could produce.

Baby A looks baffled and distraught by his sudden lack of red crayon, grabbing that of his compatriot to the right. Baby B, alerted to the disturbance, realises how he has been wronged and begins to cry and swipe at his instigator.
Baby C, however, appears baffled by the scene, a charmingly unusual audience proxy in the scene. His befuddled expression gives him the look of an impressively small old man, scoffing at the immaturity of his fellow junior diners.
"What wrong with you?" his look seems to say, "We're in a restaurant for goodness' sake - get your acts together, pick up your crayons and act like babies. You're embarrassing me."

Finally, an adult at the table.

It isn't until this juvenile theatre has subsided, babies quelled and appeased by their parents, that we glance at the menu. The embossed, leather-bound tomb seems to sparkle in the changing light as it is brought back to life in our hands.

Despite our habitual adoption of this treasured tradition, we've yet to entirely absorb the menu.
It sings with the delicious possibility of flavours that only a brunch menu can supply: sweet, berry-doused Belgian waffles, eggs benedict on a bed of BC's own fresh smoked salmon, egg-white frittatas with avocado, feta and spinach, and poached eggs with Hollandaise and sauteed chorizo on a bed of curd-covered poutine.

Back into the rhythm of the morning, floating in the bubbly mimosa contact-high, I inquire with inquisitive delight, "So what are you having?"

He lightly drops the brunch menu. reaching for the regular lunch menu.
"I think I'll have the chicken sandwich."

It's a simple act. The subtle pushing aside of the artful options, and yet a slap in the face of the amalgamated meal.
More than anything, the choice is confusing. How, with the myriad magical options before us, on a menu available within such limited constraints, would one opt to go the route of banality?
It's like being offered the wardrobe to Narnia and saying, "Thanks, but my Ikea Fjell suits me just fine."
Why would you break brunch?

"What is it?"

He looks at me sweetly and takes my hand.
However brunch illiterate he may be, the man knows me well enough to see the disturbance. The slight surface ripples, he is keenly aware, are an indicator of the churning waters below.
He taps my forehead softly with his index finger.

"You okay up there?"

Like a spell shattering, I am immediately aware of the intense absurdity of my reaction.
The fog lifts - eye twitching subsiding - and I remove my dictatorial brunch conductor hat.
Brunch can't be broken. Brunch isn't about regulations.
Brunch lives outside the law. Brunch colours outside the lines.
People said, "we can't eat now, it's neither lunch nor breakfast!" and brunch came in to change the rules.

The waitress comes and we order. My order, the only one from the brunch menu, but that's okay.

In life you need to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet.
I know. I'm sorry. It's pretty corny.
But you have to admit, it's a pretty good yolk.