The Time Buddha and I Shared a 12-Egg Omelet

Driving west in America is a downright surreal experience. You enter this bizarre, almost martian landscape somewhere just outside of Illinois and it goes on for days. Sid (that's what he told me to call him) pronounced it "Illin-noise" and said something like, "Davenport's got some killer hash browns" but we didn't even stop in Davenport. Drove right through the night chanting "om" with the static on the radio.

After an unholy night in Rapid City I ended up trotting, maybe stumbling, back to the motel with some hasty dye-job brunette named... ah, what was it? Annette? A brunette named Annette. Whatever. What matters is that Sid let me have the room. He just went out to the parking lot and meditated under a spruce tree. I tried to be good to her, to Annette the brunette, better than I had been to myself. I don't know how I did, but I hope she remembers me.

But that story isn't about me or about Annette, if that was really her name. It's about Sid, how he does the right thing all the time and he never complains. Like, never. I know what he's supposed to be and sometimes I don't wanna believe it, but ya know when someone's telling the total truth, how you can tell? That's what it's like all the time with Sid. Maybe I ought to try sitting with him next time he meditates.

Anyway, the whole trip was like that. We'd blow through a city like it was just some gas station. That is, until we crossed the Cascades. I didn't know we'd hit Seattle. I'd been asleep in the back seat for I don't know how long. Sid woke me up and said we needed to check into the next motel. I think it was called the Crown Lodge or something like that. I was so groggy that I didn't know what was going on, but before I knew it we were walking down the street toward, well, something. Sid stopped in front of this old diner and said we were going in.

The walls of the diner were covered in crayon drawings, some of them really good. I grabbed a booth and Sid didn't even look at the menu. The waitress came along and Sid said, "We'll have the 12-egg omelet". I would've argued but he said it in that way he says things and I knew it was going to happen. He looked across the table at me and he said, "You can do it, Eddie." And I trusted him.

When you go after something ridiculous like a 12-egg omelet, you can't really prepare yourself. I had an easy enough time with the first bit. We'd been on the road a while and I was hungry. But after a bit I entered this kind of trance, the pieces of egg entering my mouth rhythmically. I honestly don't recall the last few bites, but I know they happened. Somehow, Sid had made it true. I could do it, I did do it. I ate a 12-egg omelet with Buddha and more than ever before, I knew myself.

Omelet

Om

Om-let.