Scone to Dust

To some, the invention of the microwave is a blessing. To others, like myself, it can be, and very often is, one of the worst inventions in recent history. There is a trend in modern-day society to zap everything, whether it be a processed ready-meal from cold, or one’s hot coffee which has gone cold (usually because one is trying to work out how to zap one’s ready-meal in the microwave).

It is a bad habit which has extended far beyond the boundaries of the domestic abode and is now running rife in the ever-expanding café culture of Britain where no food item is safe.

Last weekend, I awoke with an unusual urge to write. As many of you know, writing at home is now a fairly impossible task for me, so I took the Docklands Light Railway into the City and eventually found a quiet café (with an available window seat!) somewhere down The Strand.

Feeling rather peckish, I decided to accompany my iced latte with a scone and jam. Not the best thing to consume when one is on a diet, but it was an improvement over my usual choice of chocolate fudge cake, crisps and a shortbread biscuit. I indicated the best-looking scone I could see behind the glass to the barista, a European girl with limited language skills, and she placed it out of view behind the counter whilst she crushed the ice for my latte.

It was only when I sat at my table that I realised exactly why she had place my beloved fruity scone out of view. As I picked it up, I noticed it was warm and soggy! There is nothing worse than a warm and soggy scone, and when I cut into it with my knife it completely disintegrated into a pile of soggy crumbs (the scone, not the knife). Naturally, I went back to complain. The barista looked at me strangely, but took my soggy crumbs and went to get me a new, fully intact scone.

It was at this point that I was distracted by a call on my mobile phone from Pink who was wondering why I’d left her at home and was convinced that I cared “more about that bloody laptop” than I did her. This was a bad thing to happen because when I returned to my seat and cut into my new scone it disintegrated just like the first one, having also been zapped by the trigger-happy barista whilst I was reassuring Pink that I was not having an affair with a dual-core processor.

By now I had lost any incentive to write. So I just sat in my seat making funny pictures out of the remnants of my soggy scone, ignoring the strange looks from other customers who were all tucking into soggy paninis.