Have Yourself a Merry Little Biscuit

I’m not delusional enough to think that a good ole scratch-made buttermilk biscuit could bring about world peace. Still, I do wholeheartedly believe it could buy you some time during negotiations. There’s something about a perfectly crisp exterior mixed with the steamy and fluffy interior when eaten fresh out of the oven that makes me consider the possibility of a loving God for a brief moment.

Biscuits are one of the many things that I know I’ll never be able to truly quit. Three years ago, I threw a perfectly good pack of cigarettes in the trash can on a street corner in Raleigh, North Carolina, and never looked back. Still, not even the threat of some new form of Empahzyma linked directly to Martha White Self Rising flour could get me to turn my back on those little golden brown beauties.

I have been made aware in my travels that in most places, biscuits are something people have only on occasion, and if you ask me, what it is that they often call a biscuit I wouldn’t give to my dog as a chew toy. Oh sure, I can slap enough butter, jelly, or honey on a penny loafer and wolf it down if I’m in a pinch, but I will spend the rest of my day thinking about how I’m going to have to poke a new hole in my belt with a pocket knife in vain. I don’t mind goin’ over my daily caloric requirements now and again, but only so long as it’s a result of something that moved me spiritually, as biscuits often do.

When I was a kid, I’d sit at the kitchen table at my Granny Bain’s house while she rolled out the dough and greased up the pan. We’d talk about who was singing out of tune in the church choir that week, why Jeff Blauser would dare betray the Atlanta Braves by going to The Cubs, and also tried to make sense of this whole OJ Simpson situation in the way only a 3rd grader and an 82-year-old woman could: very dumbly. Then we’d start eatin’ biscuits and stop with all that nonsense. Life was good.

I’m rarely hungover anymore, but when I am, my first move when I get going in the morning is to run down the street and get myself an egg and cheese biscuit with some grape jelly on it. Biscuits and Gravy if it was one of them wedding hangovers… them are worse for some reason. If you’ve never put yourself in a biscuit coma, I would highly suggest it. Every time I eat a biscuit now, it boggles the mind to think it’s often a meal eaten before work. How is that possible? A biscuit should be consumed within four reasonable steps of your bed just in case, and under no circumstances should you be allowed to operate heavy machinery afterward. As a matter of fact, I think Hardee’s should be required to provide showers as they have at truck stops so you can wake your ass up before you get in your car and take out a guard rail because you carb crashed and nodded off listening to Alan Jackson’s gospel cd for the hundredth time in a row.

Never has a situation been made worse by a table full of biscuits. Never has a waitress asked, “would you care for some biscuits for the table?” and anyone where I’m from, said “no, that won’t be necessary, we’ll just sit here and twiddle our thumbs like a couple of dipshits” I mean don’t get me wrong, we were still a couple of dipshits, but we had our hands full by god.

I look around at what’s going on in my country, and it’s hard not to scream sometimes. I understand differences of opinion, but what I do not understand is divisiveness for the sake of being divisive and politicizing things at the risk of other people’s lives. It’s reprehensible. It’s immoral. It’s just downright mean. I hear folks talking about Christmas time being stressful because of heated conversations at the dinner table, and it just breaks my heart. I’m not saying we should all give our insane Uncle a pass for saying the things he said, but I do think that maybe we should consider that this could be Meemaws last time with all the grandkids and that perhaps there are more important things at hand right now. We can’t solve the world's problems, but maybe if we all tried to fix our own, we could make a big enough dent, ya know?

Ahh hell, what does it matter anyhow? The world will keep turning, and we will keep screaming. Both sides will blame each other, and even though one of them surely has to be correct, they’ll spend so much time worrying about how to be both right and have everyone still like them at the same time so not a god damn thing will get done. Well, I’ll tell ya one thing, I ain’t doing it this year.

Like I said earlier, I’m not delusional enough to think that a good ole scratch-made buttermilk biscuit could bring about world peace…. but I do think some of us need to just shut up and eat one anyways.

Love yall

Corey