Chances are, if you are in college, you did not go to Denny's on Sunday morning for breakfast before church. You probably had the Saturday night of your life and are still in the prenatal stages of recovery. The crew is, undoubtedly, still a bit drunk, with heads starting to pound with the force of Mike Tyson's left hook. The hangover is more real than the empty wallet in your pocket from spending all your money trying to get that girl home from the bar.

There is a sublime moment as you reflect on the previous night's perils, victories, or just strange encounters. Then, the idea of your life pops into your feeble brain.

Waffle House

Waffle House on a Sunday morning is where stories come to life, whether embarrassing -- like the evidence of the hookup you so drunkenly tried to initiate on Tinder, or hilarious like the Snapchat of your bro blowing chunks across the lawn of the rival fraternity house. There is a camaraderie found in hash browns and bacon. More than likely, one of your crew got lost last night and was rescued from the freshman dorms on the way to the IHOP. Somebody certainly broke a phone and maybe even lost an ID. By some stroke of luck nobody was arrested; how you repeatedly avoid it is a mystery. With rolling thunder happening more and more often, and the police as nosy as the people advertising in the student union, it is a miracle the crew survived the night.

So what if you're thinking, “Hey, I don't drink or party"? Well that's okay too, because Waffle House is still the place for you. There are countless reasons to find yourself clogging your arteries with bacon grease at the break of dawn. You may have been nearly mauled by a wild hog while hunting at 3 a.m. or rescued a stranded friend whose car broke down in some hick town with more cows than people. The crew may be on a cross-country road trip, or you might simply get a meal before you turn in that project you pulled an all-nighter for. Breakfast is more of a gathering than the family reunion dinner because, if you are like me, your friends and brothers are your real family. Y'all make inside jokes that are about as coded as the vault at Fort Knox. The other people in the diner are not your concern; you make a ruckus. It is all about last night and the growing friendship over a bowl of grits and glass of orange juice.

The point I am trying to make is that pile of flapjacks soaking in maple syrup resembles your ultimate triumph: the fact that you made it. While the bags under your eyes and stubble on your face begin to grow, the fact that your body is about to collapse no longer affects you. You may as well have won a marathon because, after all, that's what it takes to burn the calories in an All-Star Special.