Square-Square Waffles

Ever since before I can remember, my mom has used the same old waffle iron. It works fabulously, clicking on the light at exactly the right moment to tell you to take the waffles out... you know, when the waffles are golden. I never noticed anything special about this "same old waffle iron" until the day my mom realized that making only 2 waffles at a time just wasn't cutting it for a growing family of 9. So, she, being the resourceful woman that she is, went to the DI and found a new looking waffle iron for a fraction of the price of a real new one. She brought it home and amazed us by the speed with which she could crank out waffles.

Everything was grand... Until I tried to cut my waffle into 9 pieces like I always do. You see, our waffles had always been 6 little squares by 6 little squares. That makes it perfect to cut into 9 pieces of 4 little squares... which are, coincidentally, perfect bite sized pieces. Well, to my (and most of my siblings') shock and dismay, we could not cut the waffles from the new iron into such pieces. It was a catastrophe. How on earth were we supposed to cut this waffle? It had 6 little squares on one side... so far so good. But there, on the other side, an extra row had somehow sneaked in. There were 7. You can't cut a piece of waffle that is 2 little squares by 1 little square. It's way too small, and therefore not worth the effort to cut it. But, you can't just make 3 of your pieces bigger! Think of the mess it would make as you tried to shove the honking thing into your mouth! We truly had a dilemma, and we acted accordingly. And Mom just looked at us weird. "Can't you just cut your waffle?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow.

That's when she found out that she had slightly OCD children.

"You mean, cut the waffle NOT on the lines?! How could you even suggest that?"

Well, this issue has never really been resolved. Mom still makes rectangle-square and square-square waffles, and we still eat them... It's just a little harder to deal with cutting the abnormal ones. Usually, when it's available, we put jam and whip cream on those (instead of butter and syrup), so we can't see the lines. It's a little easier to swallow that way.