I goggled like Hannibal must have goggled when told that another precious pachyderm had just blown a tire and sailed off the frozen alpine path into the deep valley below. My favourite barman and waiter, Rodgers, had just informed me there would not be a butter tart in sight this lunchtime. The room swam before me.
Dear Mrs. Qwackenbush, our gnostic baker, had decided it was time for a change, which in her pivotal world meant no more BTs. I don’t like change, not even a little bit, and we elderly Canadians have been sorely tested in that area. No more Royal Canadian Mail, or UI, or TCA, or NHL office in Canada, no more desk-bashing by MPs, the Governor General dresses like a clown, no more pomp and circumstance and don’t mention the Armed Forces. And now this.
I looked about the senior reading room as word spread like a bushfire, with several mems rubbing their temples in dismay. Gradually their heads collectively turned towards me and I found myself staring back at what looked like a warren of alarmed rabbits. I immediately struck an ad hoc committee to be named Oh No! so as to hide its real purpose from prying eyes. This is what I call “air-tight thinking.”
However I tried to get ahead of the curve by going below stairs to see the woman herself, Dorothy Qwackenbush. I arrived to find the pastry genius covered in flour. She blinked away the white stuff to say that I was the third chap so far to approach her on the by-now rather boring subject, and the answer was still No.
I was furious, of course, because with my persuasive ways I might have made some headway, but now that mere amateurs had muddied the playing field, I was done for. Just before I left I attempted to do something that often works with my wife when a sticky situation has arisen. I fell to my knees and started kissing Mrs. Q’s ankles, which were more round than I expected – I had to move around to complete the circumference.
You might not believe this, but the women struck me several times with a ladle and finally a saucepan. I packed it in after the saucepan blow and regained my feet with, I thought, a winning smile.
“It will be chocolate eclairs from now on, Major,” she said fruitily. This was too much to bear.
“French pretenders!” I bellowed. “At the club? Never!” and I put some mustard on it. Side- stepping a blow from Q’s large forearm, I legged it upstairs to quickly pass the word to my waiting committee.
“What was that?” the Admiral shouted. “Bloody pretenders here at the club. Why, it is un-Canadian!”
I shushed the elderly sailor and the rest, as I had a plan based on my days as a jammy-faced boy at boarding school. We would hold a food strike, and not just on the desserts but everything, which would bring Chef Rudolf down on the Q along with the imbecilic and unstable sous chef for ruining his creations. Several chaps complained that was going too far.
“Everything?” said the Brigadier loudly. “I mean to say, I must be fed. It’s lunch, after all.” Several sugar cubes hit him as most of the committee saw the brilliance of my plan. Of course at my school, the dietician, “Sweaty Betty,” had shot out of her office into the great hall dining room, barking frantically: “Eat the food, you things, you!”
But we did not, even under the hail of back-handers from the masters and prefects.
“The Tuck Shop will be closed,” bawled the Head, using his most potent weapon. We resisted. We won and the food improved for a while. I remember unfurling a banner that read “Less saltpeter, more good food.”
At the very next club lunch we took our stand, and I am very happy to report that outside of a few sneaks (Sherman Sorbet) who gulped down several crackers, it was a triumph of unanimity. The 300 at Thermopylae had nothing on us.
After awhile Chef Rudolf’s burnished face appeared at the kitchen door to see why the senior mems had their arms crossed. His twitching face was joined by the bug-eyed sous chef, who seemed to be mouthing something. And then finally the indifferent visage of the recalcitrant bakeress.
Suddenly the three mouths began snarling at each other, but this was quickly interrupted by Mrs. Qwackenbushe’s ladle, and the two other chefs fled from the door.
I am not sure we could have withstood the assault of the plates of overdone roast beef with an extra dollop of horseradish, which we so like, if a blushing Mrs. Q had not asked for silence. She went on to say that in the face of such resistance to change, combined with the clear love shown for her butter tarts, she felt she must bow to the wish of so many and resume the butter tart tradition at the home of homes. There a great burst of applause as we mems sighed with relief and tucked into the Yorkshire pud.
Some of us thought Mrs. Qwackenbush must have felt that she was not appreciated enough and had staged this ghastly ambush to bring things to a head. Many of us now go out of our way to chuff people up, as you never know what is brewing below the surface with villagers, It could be as serious as a stoppage of butter tarts. Be nice.
copyright christopher dalton 2015
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