Poison for Breakfast

by Lemony Snicket

Over the years I’ve learned to compare almost anything to almost anything else. I can compare the pencil I am using to write these words (and these words, and these and these) to my own life, because it is sometimes sharp and sometimes dull, and because it is getting shorter and shorter the more I use it, and because even when I try to erase things you can still see the marks they left behind. I can compare my mother to an apple, because she spent some of her early days in a tree, and because I would like her less if she were baked and sprinkled with cinnamon. I can compare sadness to an automobile, because they can both run me over, and I can compare happiness to an aardvark, because they’re both unusual to see early in the morning, and I can compare the various teas for sale at Incomparable Tea to all sorts of things, which means they’re not really incomparable. There’s a tea that tastes like freshly cut grass, and a tea that has a scent like campfire smoke. There is a tea that, when brewing in hot water, opens up like a flower, and one that dissolves into little threads like a lousy sweater. There are teas the color of a dying fern and an angry tree and a thrilling storm and dung.