Mancakes

Sometimes, the Complete and Total Loser makes pancakes for breakfast. The days he does that on are usually cold and damp ones, with no sun, preferably rain or snow. 
Pancakes are not something you usually make alone just for you. Preparation is sloppy and much cleanup is needed. They're also not a very healthy meal. Nothing but carbohydrates, butter, and liquid sugar and after eating them you feel bloated and stuffed. 
But they are a comfort food and the Loser, who always has and always will live alone, bends to his craving once every three weeks or so during the cold months and makes them.
He does something while making them that's so pathetic that it saddens even him. He imagines he's not making them only for himself but for him and the son he never had. The son is nameless. He's around five years old and a nice little boy. He and the Loser are up early. It's a Saturday or a Sunday, cold outside and gloomy. The Loser's wife—the boy's mother, also nameless—is sleeping in and will have a light breakfast and a cup of coffee when she wakes later. 
It's the first time the Loser has made this meal that the boy has been able to help. His small hands are careful with the single egg the batter requires. He stirs the batter.

"You know," the Loser tells his son, "because there aren't any girls here right now, these aren't pancakes, these are mancakes, and only men can eat them."
The boy giggles.
"If a girl came in here right now," the Loser continues, "we'd say, 'I'm sorry, lady, but you can't eat any of these. These are mancakes. You have to have just toast.'"
The boy laughs. He is thrilled with this experience of his gender opening a door to an exclusive club.
The Loser keeps it up a little longer. He uses a falsetto voice to mimic a girl saying how delicious the mancakes look and couldn't she please have just one? But no, the Loser tells her, dropping into an exaggerated base, "These are for men only."
They eat their mancakes. The Loser allows his son to use too much syrup the way kids do. It's a warm, happy moment they'll both remember forever.