Gilmore Handbook Rule 28

Whoever said "you eat to live, you don't live to eat" obviously hasn't tasted coffee, or apple tarts.

Five-year-old Lorelai smoothed out her red velvet Christmas dress and clicked her patent leather heels together. Since "there's no place like home" wasn't working, the clicking sound could amuse her for a little while. She adjusted her position in the chair she had often imagined as her "throne".

In Princess Lorelai's imagination, the throne was a place in which she was invincible. No one could force her to clean her belongings up, no one could demand that she stop twirling in her dress, and no one could prevent her from being who she wanted.

She glanced across the room to Emily and Richard, the only two familiar faces in the room. Everyone else had probably shown up every year since the Gilmores had been having parties, but Lorelai certainly didn't remember them. How long had the Gilmores been having these functions, anyway? It must have been since way before she was born.

Emily's dress far outdid those of the party guests, just as she demanded to Miss Celine. Lorelai thought that her mother's green dress made her look like someone in the Emerald City. Lorelai's fascination with "The Wizard of Oz" was all that she had as an escape from the Gilmore mansion. She was still learning to read, and with a dollhouse covered in glass as her favorite toy, she had to heavily rely on her imagination.

When she wasn't attending morning Kindergarten, Lorelai would spend time in her room, playing with her stuffed animals. By the time she was done for the day, the storyline between Flopsy the bunny and her boyfriend Snuggles the bear had thickened. They were on-again-off-again some days, and others they were completely in love.

But on this day, Princess Lorelai gave her stuffed animals a break from the soap opera she had going to keep an eye on the busy Gilmore kingdom. Just as she began to watch Richard strike a deal with one of the party's guests, a server came over with a tray of apple tarts.

"Miss? Would you like an apple tart?" he asked.

Lorelai was hungry, as the dinner wasn't appetizing. She wasn't about to eat another meal with some name she couldn't pronounce. She took a few apple tarts and placed them in a napkin on her lap. She inspected the apple tart before eating it, ensuring that it wasn't sent from an enemy kingdom to poison her, because she didn't have seven dwarfs to help save her.

She took one bite, and her love of apple tarts was born.

Lorelai smiled just thinking about the apple tarts. "Those are so good. I can almost taste them, thinking about them. I wonder where they get those tarts."

"So your obsession with apple tarts goes back to when you were five?" Luke asked.

Lorelai nodded. "Princess Lorelai asked Queen Emily for apple tarts every year, and Queen Emily saw to it that they were served every year."

Luke sighed. "I'm surprised you didn't go with 'Emily the Wicked Witch of the West' or something."

"Well, she's not that bad since she gave me apple tarts," Lorelai grinned.

Luke nodded. "I see how it is. Maybe I'll make apple tarts for you at Christmas time, and we'll see if you still like them as much."

Lorelai's eyes widened, and she leaned on Luke's shoulder, getting comfortable. "You're adding to your 'Reasons Why Luke is Amazing' list. A lot."

"Well, by this time, I have heard enough rules to know that if you mention two things in the rule, there's another story coming."

"You are so smart, Luke!" Lorelai said.

Lorelai was ten. She sat in front of her books, trying her hardest to complete her homework. She was getting tired. She had nearly dozed off when the new maid knocked on the door. "Miss Gilmore?"

Lorelai turned around. "Yeah?"

"I was instructed by Mrs. Gilmore to ensure that you completed your homework before going to bed," she said.

Lorelai nodded. "I'll try. I'm so tired. Hey, do you make coffee?"

The maid nodded. "Yes, but…"

Tilting her head, Lorelai smiled. "That would really wake me up. And I'd be able to get my homework done. That would make my mother very, very happy," Lorelai said, trying her hardest to convince the maid to give her some coffee.

The maid sighed. "Very well. How do you take your coffee?"

Lorelai shrugged. "Black."

"If you insist," the maid said.

Lorelai waited for the maid to come back upstairs. She was finally making good on her newfound ability to talk the maids into anything she wanted. Closing her book and staring at the door, she thought about the coffee and what it would taste like. She'd be rather disappointed if it wasn't any good.

The maid brought back the coffee on a saucer, with cream and sugar on the side. Lorelai politely thanked the maid and let the coffee cool for a few minutes. She'd watched the adults drink the coffee so many times, and she was virtually an expert on how to drink it. She slowly sipped it, careful not to burn her mouth. She'd expected it to taste a little different, but it was definitely something Lorelai could get used to. She, after all, did have an extremely strange taste.

Lorelai's first cup of coffee went slowly, as she was sure she could only get in the maid's head so many times before she was considered possessed or something. But, from that day on, Lorelai couldn't go without coffee.

"You were ten?" Luke asked.

Lorelai nodded. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, you know. I was desperate, therefore I took the initiative to get myself some. And rest assured, your coffee is way better than that maid could have ever attempted. Oh, man."

"Good to know," Luke said tentatively.

Lorelai grinned. "Has April had coffee yet?"

"She's tried it. She goes to Starbucks in New Mexico sometimes, apparently," Luke replied.

Lorelai shook her head. "Starbucks just doesn't cut it, sorry. Yours is better. She's gotta try it."

"Here we go," Luke said, sighing and sinking lower in his seat on the couch.