Recently, I had an opportunity to address the Key Biscayne Rotary Club at its weekly breakfast meeting. This was a lot different than my usual morning address, which typically goes like this:

Me: What doyou want for breakfast, Glen?
Glen: Star Wars.
Me: You can't eat Star Wars. What do you want to eat?
Glen: Cando.
Me: You can't have candy for breakfast. How about a waffle?
Glen: Cando.
Me: No candy. Eggy and toast?
Glen: Cando.
Me: Poppy tart?
Glen (pointing at the candy bowl): Cando, cando, cando, cando, cando, cando, CANDOOOOOOOO..."
Me: Okay, okay. You want a Tootsie Roll Pop?
Glen (clapping): Yeah!
Me: Just don't tell your mother.

As you can see, I'm not exactly at my best in the morning, evident by the fact that I can be easily bullied by a two-year-old. Truth is, neither my brain nor stomach is an early riser. Usually, it's not till 10 o'clock that I can clear my mind with a few sips of Colombian caffeine, gently stir my sleepy tummy awake with a powdered mini-donut or six, turn on my computer at work and watch the cursor blink until I either figure out something to write or realize that I have to go to the bathroom.

But suddenly one Friday, I found myself at the Sonesta Beach Resort at 7:30 a.m. with a group of upstanding civic leaders, Rotarians all who seemed to have been wide awake for hours, robustly enjoying their softly scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, fresh fruit and flaky Danish as though it were a mid-day brunch.

As I shuffled along the buffet table, my mouth felt unusually dry. I didn't realize that I was already coming down with a bug that would eventually have me coughing up blood. My appetitie wasn't destined to wake up at all that day, but just to be polite, I filled a plate.

What am I doing here? This question seemed to swirl around my head as I found a seat and pretended to eat. When I was first asked to address the Rotary Club, it sounded like a good idea for a couple of reasons: 1) I've never addressed any type of club or organization before, and I figured it might be a good experience and 2) the proposed date was two or three months in the future, which meant that I wouldn't have to worry about it for a while.

But now the day was here, and so was I. The meeting was called to order. There was a lot of official Rotary Club business to attend to: an invocation, a presentation of club buttons and pins to a half-dozen or so new members, short speeches by those new members, remarks of a Rotarian visiting from England, a series of fines levied by two sergeants-at-arms, a smattering of "happy dollar" confessions and, of course, unwavering leadership as well as running commentary from then-club president Lee Niblock, who is pretty wild and crazy for a state park manager and genuinely more fun than a barrel of sea oats.

Lee eventually introduced the ever-gracious Anne Owens, who in turn introduced me. Finally, I got up to speak. I managed to ascend the podium without tripping over any steps, set my speech on it, cleared my throat, opened my mouth and...

Suddenly, there was a loud crash as two of the waiters overturned the buffet table. Yelps of surprise quickly turned into shrieks of horror as the waiters grabbed AK-47 assault rifles that were taped to the underside of the table and started spraying the conference room with bullets.

"Watch out!" someone yelled over the din. "They're Knights of Columbus!"

I hit the deck. A spray of lead riddled the podium, reducing my speech to confetti. Damn, I thought, now I'm gonna have to ad-lib.

"They're not Knights of Columbus," someone else yelled. "They're Optimists."

The waiters did indeed seem to be smiling. But that was just until police chief Michael Flaherty, a long-standing Rotarian, jumped up with pistol leveled and fired off two quick rounds.

The waiters were Optimists no more. With a dying breath, one of them managed to toss an incendiary device which rolled towards the center of the floor. Most people with good sense dove out of its way, but one figure countered the flow. It was fire rescue chief John Gilbert, a new Rotarian, who wasn't about to sit by and watch his scrambled eggs get fried hard. He doused the device in a pot of decaf, proving for once and for all that, yes, you can put out a fire with hot water, or in this case, hot coffee.

Everyone applauded the respective chiefs. It was just another day at the office for these guys.

Later on, autopsies of the two waiters proved that they weren't Optimists at all but rather surgically-altered Masons. It's taken a few weeks of investigative reporting, including several hours of fever-induced hallucinations, for me to uncover the truth behind this breakfast onslaught.

You see, Key Biscayne is a unique community where volunteerism seems to be the norm rather than the exception. People here volunteer for everything from being Mayor and Councilpeople to cross-checking public works' Rickenbacker Causeway toll figures with figures from the Planet Earth. Got a swale that needs some flowers? Some beautification volunteers will take care of it. Got a raccoon problem? Some urban wildlife volunteers will figure out a solution. Need a foundation to raise funds for school technology? Some computer-savvy volunteers will organize it. Want a community center? Don't worry. Some recreation-minded volunteers will form a committee to guide the Village.

The list goes on and on and on and on. And leading the way are official service organizations such as the Rotary Club, Kiwanis and Lion's Club, which are always raising money for one charitable cause or another. It's no wonder that similar service clubs are dying to get a foothold on the Key, and some of them will stop at nothing short of disrupting breakfast.

But with a population of less than 10,000, there are only so many philanthropic citizens to go around. The island can only support so many clubs, and if you're not established here already, you're probably out of luck.

No matter how tempting it might seem, don't try muscling in on the Rotarians, especially over breakfast. Because while much of the world is still asleep, the Rotarians are wide awake, dining on scrambled eggs and seeking wrongs to right in their neverending quest to improve life, liberty and the American way, even if it means making up some cock-n-bull story to take the place of a rather unremarkable morning address or giving your two-year-old Tootsie Roll Pops for breakfast.