"Eggs benedict with a tazer stun gun on the side, please."

Why...

Must people feel compelled to have business breakfast meetings?

Breakfast is a time when the brain needs a kick-start of coffee to aid gentle re-entry into reality’s atmosphere. You start by reading about the latest world shattering crisis from the Kardashian family and end with the less trivial matters of Wall Street or Washington.

The idea I would agree to spend those delicious moments of transformation with someone pitching a financing opportunity whilst wearing a tie loud enough to deafen, is ludicrous. The loudest thing I am prepared to listen to is ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’.

I am pretty certain that all the bad deals were made over breakfast...

"No Josephine, I have made up my mind. We fight at Waterloo tomorrow. Now pass me a croissant." 17th June 1815

"So. All agreed? We change the Coke formula and call the old one Coke Classic. Waffles all round" April 23 1985

"No one will give a shit? Break in if you have to. Just get that stuff out of the Watergate building. More bagels?" October 9th 1972

I imagine evening meals where your brain is fully functioning are therefore so much more successful…

"So Miss Rowling, everyone else has turned down your Harry Potter book? May I offer you more wine?" May 10 1996

"Ok Winston, D-Day is a go. Now another brandy and cigar?" June 4th 1944

"Let’s raise a toast to our little company. And we’ll call it EBay." September 2 1995

...and another thing

Even breakfast conversations between married couples should be restricted to nothing more stressful than:

“Pass the marmalade,”

Or the occasional muttering of:

“The man is an idiot”, either referring to an article in the paper or directed at whoever is being interviewed on the breakfast news. The only business undertaken should be confined to discreetly shredding your credit card final demand and dropping the pieces into the goldfish bowl.

...and another thing

How are you expected to read a spreadsheet whilst trying to spread butter on toast? And have you noticed people’s general eating habits seem to be worse at breakfast and your host is nearly always overweight?? Some beached whale with his open mouth masticates his French toast and slurps away at coffee; in most hotels just some dark liquid that seems to have been strained through a bus driver’s sock. And please, please no photos of children or questions about the previous night’s football game… unless you don’t mind wearing my poached eggs and sausage.

...and another thing

Even if I do agree to these meetings, they are often in America. This means a stack of pancakes the size of an elephant’s foreleg covered in sweet smelling Maple syrup. A wonderful aroma I am sure but not at 7.30 AM whilst recovering from a hangover. And what is this obsession about adding fruit to egg dishes?

However I admit that only we Brits have baked beans at breakfast and show most Americans a grilled kidney or a kipper early in the morning and they either will faint or throw up over you.

...and another thing

There is however one saving grace, apart from breakfast never dragging on for more than an hour. I recommend keeping the card of the person who insisted on the meeting. When you next get a cold call about double glazing or similar simply say:

“I am are very busy but have a twenty bedroom mansion in the Hamptons that I have always wanted to double-glaze. Let’s talk. I will be free on Friday but in Tokyo so please call this number at 3AM New York time to go over the costs and close a deal,” as you read out the cell phone number on the card.

Next time your serial (cereal) breakfast businessman calls you for another meeting, yawn loudly and explain you are so tired from being woken up by a double glazing salesman who somehow got your number.

“He rang you too???!! The bastard woke me up in the middle of the night…..”

Hold the phone away from your ear as he rants on and pour yourself a cup of sweet revenge.

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4 Comments

  1. Paola says:

    LOL LOL
    I hate people talking to me in the morning, the only noise I love is the coffe pot bubbling … EveN my cat’s miaowing annoys me.

  2. Kevin Cooney says:

    Break-in-news :First secretary of the Workers’ Party Kim Jong Un appears in crop field reassuring North Korea there’s no food shortage, or at least there wasn’t before his breakfast.
    Then there was granddad who never liked to be interrupted when he was drinking his breakfast- he’d say “you can’t drink all day unless you start early in the morning”
    Wish words

  3. graham says:

    you have an evil mind…………….

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