JOHN DeMONT: Pie for breakfast and other everyday acts of rebellion

The other night as a sleepover gathering wound down, the subject of what to do with the leftover pie came up.

“What about breakfast,” someone said.

What about breakfast, indeed. Pie is magnificent at any time of the day, but there is something about having it in the morning, in place of the ole yogurt and granola.

First, it involves no effort on the part of the chef.

Second, as well as hitting the taste buds just right, there’s the tiny thrill you get from committing a small, subversive act like starting the day with something that nutritionally is undeniably bad for you.

I use this term subversive, as you probably gather, in the broadest possible manner, because I have always been a law-abiding, colour-between-the-lines type: other than the Resolutes Amateur Athletic Club, and the Queen Elizabeth High Facebook group, no membership in dubious organizations for me.

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I have, in the spirit of full disclosure, from time-to-time thrown caution to the wind and parked in employees-only spots behind private businesses, but only at night or on weekends when no one is there to call the tow truck.

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A late-teen dine-and-dash from a downtown Halifax eating establishment is the closest I have come to an actual felony, although there may be a long-ago Carleton University phone bill that is still outstanding, to which I plead the statute of limitations.

I have, in the spirit of full disclosure, from time-to-time thrown caution to the wind and parked in employees-only spots behind private businesses, but only at night or on weekends when no one is there to call the tow truck.

Braving the wrath of the HRM’s dog patrol, I have, again usually under cover of darkness, walked my hound where no dog is supposed to tread.

Just the other day, after having finished Michael Ondaatje’s wonderful The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, I picked a couple of grapes at the Superstore, and ate them as I strolled.

This, it should be noted, was before the members of the Halifax Regional Police Department were deployed at Superstore locations across the HRM, and for all I know the province, to put the kibosh to just that sort of wrongdoing. Like Billy, I seem to have been just ahead of the law.

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My point is that while we may obediently assemble in the burger line at the Scotia Square food court, as much as we patiently await our turn at the four-way stop, even the most law-abiding among us longs to occasionally emit a rebel’s yell.

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My point is that while we may obediently assemble in the burger line at the Scotia Square food court, as much as we patiently await our turn at the four-way stop, even the most law-abiding among us longs to occasionally emit a rebel’s yell.

How do I know this so definitively? I speak from a lifetime of experience.

Yes, it was great to pretend to be sick in elementary school, so that I could stay at home to watch the midday matinee, but was the pleasure not heightened by knowing that when Robert Jollimore and Kenny Moores were doing their times tables, I was seated in front of the black and white television set, coughing every now and then for my mom’s benefit, as the creature emerged from the Black Lagoon?

To this day I experience the same sense of deep fulfillment when sitting in front of the big screen, at the movie theatre, in the afternoon on a weekday, when the rest of the world is at work.

My glee grows exponentially when in the movie theatre on a blazing summer day. When we lived in Toronto in an air conditioner-less apartment, that was out of necessity.

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To this day I experience the same sense of deep fulfillment when sitting in front of the big screen, at the movie theatre, in the afternoon on a weekday, when the rest of the world is at work.

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Yet, what does it say about me, that even now when the mercury soars I sometimes like to be inside, looking up at something mindless, when the virtuous are outdoors, as we are supposed to be during fine weather, doing something that is “good for you.”

My contrariness does not manifest itself in bad habits like regular “mental health” days sitting at home, binging on Cheezies and episodes of Peaky Blinders.

No, it is a mostly harmless trait, a desire to demonstrate that, even within the restrictive parameters of 21nd-century life, we can show that we are not sheep.

Instead of a few minutes snatched with the video off on a Zoom call, we can take a full-fledged midday mid-week nap, and the world will be no worse off when we awake.

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It is good to hold on to that belief, no matter how untrue we know it to be — to think that we are capable of a small bold act, just for boldness sake.

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We can take pleasure, during days spent getting our steps and eating healthy and sustainably, in hitting the drive-thru, then wolfing down our fries and triple meat patties while wheeling through the streets, like we are 18 again. (Maybe if the outlaw’s spirit particularly moves us, we will crank the music and lower the windows, although not too loud though; people are sleeping.)

We did pointless things back then, as well as things that seemed undignified, and unadult, but made us think that maybe there was a little rule-breaking Keith Richards, a little outrageous Dennis Rodman in all of us.

It is good to hold on to that belief, no matter how untrue we know it to be — to think that we are capable of a small bold act, just for boldness sake.

What I mean to say is eat the damn pie with your morning coffee or before the salad course at supper. When you do so, look around the room with a Ray Liotta scowl, daring someone, anyone to try to stop you.