Car seat and $1.95 Wal-mart children’s sunglasses?

Or military-grade ejection seat and wicked aviator glasses?

You, our dedicated reader, know Marek pretty well by now, so I think you already know the answer.

That’s right, car seat and two dollar kid’s shades. He’s only three, for cryin’ out loud. Plenty of time for him to be a pilot when he grows up. For now, all he needs is daddy-kisses and pancakes.

We went to Sub World at 10051 North Dale Mabry on 7 August 2010. This was our first visit to Sub World, and we would have never in a hundred years looked to a sub place for breakfast if Tampa Bay Breakfasts fan Brandt hadn’t recommended it.

Once we got in the door we were greeted with some friendly hellos. Customer-wise, folks seemed to be more tucked into breakfast than anything else; it was sort of quiet in the room at 0830. We, of course, broke the seal on that in a hurry.

I’m going to tell you a story that, for once, I’m not making up. Nice lady comes over to ask what we’d like. Marek turns to her and says, complete with waving hands and bugged out eyeballs, that he would like juice, and empty coffee cup, and his dad wants coffee with chocolate too, and we want pancakes.

Chocolate? Really, Marek? Don’t you ever read Tampa Bay Breakfasts?

Did we get our coffee based on his wild, ranting, slightly inaccurate order?

Yes. Yes we did.

Our truly dedicated readers, the ones that also read the tabloids and the speculative writers, the opinions and the fan sites about us, and there are hundreds (including one that suggests that Marek is actually Jennifer Anniston’s long-hoped-for baby), our truly dedicated readers know that all of our photographs are taken with the super-delux, professional-grade camera built into my little Nokia. Frankly, I’m amazed you can even tell the difference between Marek and pancakes with this sorry little phone cam. But regardless, for you, the TBB fan, we try to push the limits and really bring you as close to the breakfast edge as possible. So here’s a look at the Sub World’s coffee … from inside the cup! Now that’s ground-breaking breakfast-photo-journalism, seen here first!

Inside Sub World, you find folks who either know the secret that this sub shop serves breakfast or folks who are hoping to get a foot-long cheesesteak for breakfast. Two tables over from us we overheard an interesting conversation. “So, what is this face book thing everyone’s talking about?” “It’s this thing on the inner net where you tell people things about yourself.” .38 Special was playing on the radio in the background.

While we waited for some morning chow, I was given the duty of operating the fire department mobile command post vehicle. I pointed out to Marek that a mobile command post would probably be at least an SUV if not a full-blown rig. He told me that he was calling the shots here. It was his active flightline.

Active flightline, you say? Yes. Not only is it an active flightline, from what I could gather through local intel, this was a secret spy mission flightline somewhere in the Kyrgyzstan mountains. Why else would they be flying a decomissioned cold-war-era SR-71? (And if you follow that link, notice that it ends with “shtml”. I didn’t know ANYONE was using server-side-includes anymore. That’s so cutting-edge-web for 1996. (I still write HTML by hand, to the version 3 spec, so I’m actually excited that someone else is also stuck in the 90s. In Kyrgyzstan.))

The SR-71 is truly a lovely aircraft. This one has been tricked out with chrome exhaust ports. That’s definitely not in the maintenance TO. Another reason why I think this whole operation is under the radar. (Get it? Under the radar? For an airplane? I slay me.)

Sure enough, without following the established guidelines for aircraft maintenance you’re bound to get in trouble. This is why you should always have the United States Air Force involved. Do not try to operate your chromed-up, tricked out, end-of-life military aircraft without adult supervision, kids.

Luckily, the ejection seat from the start of this morning’s effort came in handy. No one was hurt.

Good thing for us hungry pilots, here’s breakfast!

Not bad, all around. Pancakes were just fine. Bacon was not Steve-Standard but was above average for our travels. Eggs were pretty good. Syrup came in a cute little jar.

We ate and we ate well. When the bill came we were a little surprised that we were set back almost 13 clams. This same breakfast usually costs us about 11, so we’re going to call this on the high side, price-wise. Must be a surcharge to support the pilot recovery from that crash we had earlier.

Marek offered to pay the bill. He is truly a Breakfast Scholar. Ph.D. of the Morning Meal.

Especially when the lad brings back the change. That’s the part I’m going to miss when he gets older.

At the end of the breakfast day, we had a pretty good morning chow. Folks were nice. Food was good. Price was high. We’re happy to give Sub World a Tampa Bay Breakfasts rating of three and a half pancakes.

After breakfast, Marek said, hey old man, let’s get that pretty girl of ours some flowers. So we pointed the Pancake Pontiac (it’s actually a Toyota) to Tampa’s Florist, our favorite flower shop.

Marek picked out the perfect flowers for mom. Part of what made them perfect was that he could reach them.

And he even delivers. For a nominal fee, of course.

For any readers who are intrepid enough to read to the very end, I want to assure you that Marek is a highly trained and qualified pilot. None of the stunts we perform for Tampa Bay Breakfasts are ever accomplished without a lot of preparation, training, and certification of skills.

Marek is pictured here with his actual SR-71 and his ground support team from the Kyrgyzstan mission. Note that the intake baffles are NOT chromed, thank you very much.