First published in Chapter House, in 2024.
On Saturday, July 6, at Flip’s Waffle Stop, in Pine Woods, Pennsylvania (population 520), Jerome K. Kyle cooked the best waffle the world has ever known. He was standing in for April, who was out sick that morning with a stomach bug, and he mixed the batter a minute too long because he thought up an incredible drum line not a second earlier and wanted to remember it when he got off work. He didn’t. He also added more salt because the instructions were smudged and more sugar because he didn’t care enough to level off the measuring cup. The waffle cooked browner than expected, and he thought he had screwed up, so he covered it with an even coating of powdered sugar before sliding the dish across the counter to the waitress who took the best waffle the world has ever known to a mother of a family of four. The mother of this family of four reached for the condiments and drowned the best waffle the world has ever known in softened butter and Aunt Jemima syrup. She ate the waffle no slower than she usually eats waffles at Flip’s Waffle Stop, in Pine Woods, Pennsylvania, which has not seen pine trees within town limits since logging stopped in 1895. The mother thought nothing of the best waffle the world has ever known, though it satisfied her morning craving without complaint. Her son, a little two-year-old, stole a taste of the waffle—a corner piece his mother hadn’t flooded with syrup or butter. He chewed slower than his mother, savored the experience, and realized in his little two-year-old mind that this was the best waffle his world has ever known. All he could do was cry. One minute later, Jerome K. Kyle cooked his next waffle order, which was no different from all the other waffles served at Flip’s Waffle Stop, in Pine Woods, Pennsylvania. The remains of the best waffle the world has ever known, which the mother could not finish, were tossed into a plastic-lined trash can and later driven to the Sullivan County Landfill.