The Betty Crocker Cake-Mix analogy

pivotal · ~YDPAH (Gately's residency), one night near the Allston Spur barge-docks

• When: early in Gately's residency, "one night" down near E.W.D.'s barge-docks off the Allston Spur
• What: Eugenio's most famous parable, delivered from behind the wheel: he "invited Gately to think of Boston AA as a box of Betty Crocker Cake Mix," whose directions "any eight-year-old could read." When Gately (bracing for yet another bug) smacked his forehead, Eugenio told him it "didn't matter one fuckola" whether he believed a cake would result or understood the baking-chemistry: "if he just followed the childish directions, a cake would result. He'd have his cake." Gately privately thought the frosting was the best part and thought Eugenio "a smug and self-righteous prick" — and did exactly as told anyway, treating prayer "like setting an oven-temp according to a box's direction," and at ~four to seven months clean found the Desire Removed (cross-ref Gately spine event 34).