I used to drive a bus for a children’s center, one of those places where parents can drop their kids off in the morning before they head to work, then pick them up again after they get off work. While the kids are at the center, they are supervised and kept busy, so they aren’t left fending for themselves at home while their parents are gone.
My job was to drive them to and from the center and their schools. I the mornings I’d haul them to their schools, and in the afternoons I’d haul them from their schools back to the center. You haven’t lived until you are driving a busload of rowdy kids around. These kids were so noisy I couldn’t hear anything outside the bus. If a police officer ever tried to pull me over (which never happened) I wouldn’t have been able to hear the sirens.
The only thing that made the whole thing tolerable was Miss Doris. She was the chef for the center and she prepared meals for the kids before and after school. Every now and again she made brownies. Not just any brownies – quintessential brownies.
I have never before and likely never will again have brownies as good as Miss Doris’s brownies. These are brownies so good that you take a bite and weep for the angels because they ain’t got ’em.
I have no idea what arcane arts she practiced to make hers so good. They were always perfect – chewy, with a slightly crunchy crust, and the prefect amount of chocolate. If I was really luck she’d make them with walnuts and caramel baked all through them. The ultimate mix of chocolatey sweet crunchy chewy yumminess! Wash it all down with a cold glass of milk and them’s some good eatin’s.
Before she left the center she made a batch of brownies just for me. And oh, I was sorely tempted to hog them all to myself. But it would have been a sin to not share them with any of my cow-orkers and deny them the gustatory delights that were Miss Doris’s brownies. So, out of the whole batch I ended up with three of them. I ate them slowly, the better to savor every delectable morsel.
I have no idea where Miss Doris ended up. I’ll probably never get to have her brownies again. I chalk it up to the ephemeral nature of Life. You never know when a treasure will appear before you out of the blue so enjoy them when and while you can. As the saying goes – life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.
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