The chocolate chip pancake story

(This post was inspired by Shaz who emailed me that she had eaten chocolate chip pancakes this morning. Those three little words chocolate-chip-pancakes always makes me cringe. Here's why.)

I am known for never lying but once,in high school,I told a lie. I know,it's shocking. Even I was stunned when it happened.This is a good lesson in telling the truth!

After our Friday night high school basketball game in 1980,most of the cheerleading squad went to our captain Ann's house for a sleep over. She had the cool parents. The ones who would be arrested in 2006 if their kids were growing up in this decade. We were allowed to drink at their house whenever there was a party. I always told my parents and I always slept over if I had been drinking. My parents were "cool" too in those days.

Some of the boys who knew we were at Ann's house came over to hang out with us. We went skating on the lake behind the house and then we sat around the wood stove in the basement to warm up and talk. When it got late,the boys left but Ann invited them to come by the next day.

When we woke up the following morning,Ann's mom asked us what we wanted for breakfast. Everyone yelled,"PANCAKES!!" That sounded good to me too. Then.....before I knew what was happening......for no reason that I can make sense of......I blurted out,"I can make chocolate chip pancakes!!" Everyone stared at me with a sparkle in their eye. Gasps of,"Oh my G-d!!..... Really?......You can?" filled the kitchen. Then....it was too late. Their minds were set on it.

I've gone over this moment in my head many times over the years and the truth is,I have no idea what made me lie. I barely knew how to make regular pancakes,let alone chocolate chip ones. I thought,"How hard could it be? I had pancake mix and chocolate chips. I was on Honor Society! I knew stuff. I could do this."

I read the instructions on the box,mixed it together and added a good amount of chocolate chips. This wasn't so tough. Just then,one of the girls looked in the bowl and asked,"Don't chocolate chip pancakes usually have a dark batter rather than a yellow batter?"

Not knowing if that was actually true or not and reluctant to look like a moron,I said,"Well,I'm not done!" I opened all the cabinets until I found a can of cocoa powder. Who knew it was unsweetened? It was chocolate. That was good enough for me.
I added a generous helping of powder to my mix and stirred. Damn! It was like mixing cement.

I had doubled or tripled the batch so there was quite a lot of batter but I cooked it all on the griddle and presented my creation to my friends. I didn't really get any rave reviews but no one choked,died or had to be rushed to the hospital so I felt ok. The texture was....interesting......but they tasted ok. We ate a couple of them and then we all said we were stuffed and we'd save the leftovers for later.

The boys returned a short time after we ate breakfast and we all went skating on the lake again. Several hours later,we went indoors and Ann's mother whipped up some hot chocolate. Someone said we should heat up the pancakes for a snack. Reluctantly,I did.

The boys ate them like they were candy. "These cookies are delicious!!!! Who made them???" they asked. I hesitantly spoke up and said,"I did. I made the......cookies." All the girls looked up from their snack to stare at me as they tried to hide a smile. They didn't say one word. The boys were full of compliments so I popped one of those treats into my mouth. Hmmmm....as cookies,these things were pretty darn good! Yes they were. I smiled innocently at my friends and vowed I would never lie again!

Have you ever told a lie that you regretted the moment it was out of your mouth?