This fat friend of mine and I once decided - after his mother had gone out of the house for a while - to try our youthful hands at making up a batch of pancakes. I gently beat the ingredients together while he watched, excitedly gasping with his meaty glistening tongue ever-so-slightly jutting out of his mouth because he wasn't that bright. When the batter had reached the appropriate consistency I heated a knob of margarine in a medium sized frying pan and coated the non-stick base in the creamy mixture, tilting the pan with an air of professionalism to ensure a full coverage.
The first pancake came out way too thick, as first pancakes often will, but we scoffed it up anyway with artificial lemon juice and sugar. The doughy texture seemed to agree with my fat friend. To my surprise, the second attempt was not any better, nor were the third, fourth or fifth attempts.
"Shit," I probably said.
By this time I had completely lost faith and hope in the project and just wanted to watch TV. Just then my fat friend inexplicably panicked about what his mother would say when she found out that we had tried to make pancakes, and I waited on edge for the inevitable moment when he would thoughtlessly hyperventilate while I tried to comfort him and dry the spittle from his downy moustache.
I told him to pour the remainder of the incriminating batter down the sink, but he said that was no good and frantically held the jug to his lips and began to pour it down his choking throat, gagging odd flecks of the mixture out through his widened nostrils. We put the last dregs in the back flowerbed. I'll never forget his face, wide, teary and streaked with pancake.
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