There will be people that will disagree with my approach to Thursday mornings—I might even be one of them.

Our 12 year old wakes up on Thursday mornings at 4:50am (this is not a typo—FOUR fiddy) to go to swim practice. She is dragged by the hair while hanging off of her bed frame by her fingernails does it without complaining, eats something resembling a breakfast, brushes something resembling teeth and falls out the door to be picked up by her Thursday morning chauffeur service—thank you Swim Dad!

Our routine started innocently enough. I would meet Hanna at school after her practice and the first time it happened, I came bearing a gift in the form of a toasted English muffin from Tim Hortons with bacon and cheese.

The next week, that alarm clock scared my heart back into place from the week before and once again she was off. Again, I met her at the school with a warm breakfast thinking it would be the toasted baked goodie she would remember in therapy forty years from now and not the icy water at the crack of silly.

Months passed and I continued to bring the English muffin on Thursday mornings. It was in some way to deal with my own guilt but also, I enjoyed the smell of bacon that lingered in my mini-van for at least an hour.

Yesterday, our system collapsed. The signs on the highway “Construction through the area is slowing things down—expect delays” was the biggest understatement of the year. The sign should have read, “The turtle migration will move faster than your car today” because I was stuck and there was no time to make it to the English muffin line.

I met Hanna at school and she looked pale, weak.

I explained the situation and it seemed she had lost the will to live or walk the twelve steps into the front doors of the school.

She asked me if I would go to Harvey’s and buy her a breakfast sandwich.

This is where I know a lot of you are thinking, “THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD BABY MY KID LIKE THAT! I’D SLAP THEM IN THE ASS AND SEND THEM INTO SCHOOL WITH BARE FEET AND HUNGRY! HA! THAT’LL TEACH THEM SOMETHING ABOUT SPILLING KETCHUP ON THE FLOOR!” Or something like that.

You might also be wondering, “Harvey’s makes breakfast sandwiches?” No, no they don’t. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

I drove to Harvey’s and lined up at the drive-thru, staring at the sign looking for something that appeared to have breakfast-ish items.

I sat at the window for what seemed an eternity.

It wasn’t until the nice lady came up to the window of my van and yelled, “WE’RE NOT OPEN YET!” that I realized I probably wasn’t going to find what I was looking for. Also, in the spirit of “a beautiful thing” she had her hands cupped around her mouth the way you would if you were trying to be sarcastic and mean. Noted. In fairness, I wasn’t in the mood for a burger “just the way you want it” because the way I wanted it was with an English muffin, bacon and cheese from Tim Horton’s.

I waited in the Starbuck’s line for about ten minutes and ordered the breakfast sandwich for $7.80—a steal at quadruple the price and returned to the school.

I could tell by the looks on some of the staff, they assumed our family didn’t have any groceries or immediate plans for food and looking at Hanna who was playing the role of “starving child, two breaths from collapsing” wasn’t helping.

I handed her the gift wrapped sandwich and gave her a hug.

We agreed Thursday mornings would have to change.

Next week’s menu—mint gum and the emergency protein bar in my glove box.