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FlapJack
by Joseph Scholes

Queuing, for what seems like an eternity, inside a train station café, I am contemplating whether or not to get a tasty flapjack to go with the cappuccino I have just ordered. Dare I treat myself - do I deserve it?

I am suddenly overcome with argument and counter argument. After all, I have been waiting in this queue for a while and the service has been decidedly poor – it would certainly show them if I disrupted their flow and asked for a flapjack as well, PAYBACK!           

Possibly not the most effective revenge tactic but I can sense that I am just searching for any means of justification. The golden, oatey glow seems to be staring me out at this point, mocking me. It doesn’t think that I am man enough to make an executive treat based decision – well you’re wrong flapjack, so wrong!

I often like to treat myself when travelling; I will be sat in that carriage watching a film on my laptop for upward of 2 hours – I surely deserve some recompense. NO! Joe, you clown! The train is doing all of the work; you’re just sitting there – If anyone deserves a flapjack it is the train.

Looking out of the window up at the sky I search for a sign – perhaps a cake shaped fluffy mound of cloud or maybe even just an outline of a ‘thumbs up’ – Anything to let me know I was doing the right thing. If there was ever an issue that needed to be settled by supernatural intervention it is this one.

I then begin to realise that this decision has taken up longer consideration time than that of which University I attended, or even of which parent I love the most – But this is a delicate situation.

In this culture of ‘something for nothing’ procuring a delicious cakey treat would be an insult unless it was well earned. Sure, I work hard but so does everybody else. If we all had my cavalier attitude to snacking then the calorie intake would be through the roof – That may suit the USA but Britain says ‘no thanks’.   

Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, how did they treat themselves after a hard days work? I surely don’t want to overstep the boundaries. If I am treating myself more for travelling than they did for making the world a better place then I will feel downright silly.  

I am at odds with myself over this one. It’s a stalemate. How do I make a decision?

Oh but look! This flapjack has raisins in – That is one of my five a day, I would be a fool not to get it.

Case Closed!