The Needfulness of a Griddle

On some Saturday mornings, when it seems pleasing to us, Steve and I wake up and make some form of hearty breakfast. This morning it took close to an hour. We don't spend that amount of time on most dinners. We mix the pancakes (this morning it was blueberry), we prepare the bacon, we get the eggs in the deck ready for when the pan is available. Each pancake, as I'm sure you know, is to be cooked for 1-1&1/2 minutes on each side over medium heat. We make about 10 of those, but it inevitably takes more than 20 minutes. Then we decide what to do with the eggs. This morning it was eggs in a basket. So Steve prepared our bready baskets and got out the eggs, all the whle microwaving our bacon. I'm not sure how this step took the remaining 40 minutes. We put the buttered bread baskets on the pan (one at a time, of course--small pan) and let them sizzle. Dumping the egg in, we let it cook for the prescribed 1-1&1/2 minutes then flipped it and let it cook. We repeated with the second one, again, all the while microwaving the bacon. One would think that a prescribed 1-1&1/2 minutes on both sides for two eggs in a basket wouldn't result in an overly lengthy breakfast preparation process. But it did. This length of time was further accented by the fact that I once watched my college roommate Emily make breakfast at her house in 10 minutes flat--and she produced more food than we did this morning. The secret to her success? (Besides being from the South) A Griddle. And that's all I could think as I pulled up the barstool to the stove as I flipped pancakes--get a griddle, get a griddle, get a griddle. It's better for your back...