My dog is an alchemist. He’s cracked a secret some people spend their lives chasing: a perpetual motion machine made entirely of leftovers. He doesn’t see a transgression when he spins around and hoovers up his own production. He sees a gift. An edible dividend. A rebate on the original meal.

In that split second between my horrified scream and his triumphant gulp, there’s a whole philosophy at work. A psychology that’s far too familiar once you squint past the vileness. The loop is closed. Output becomes input. The bin is bypassed entirely. He’s beaten the first law of thermodynamics with nothing but a digestive tract and a total absence of shame.

I’ve just watched this happen and thought, stupidly, “what was he thinking?” And the answer, obviously, was something like: ooo look free unlimited food. That’s it. No guilt. No calculation of nutritional depletion. Just the giddy, circular efficiency of a creature who’s found a way to keep eating forever without any new resources entering the system.

We’re meant to find this revolting. We do. But the psychology is not uniquely canine. We just dress ours up in a sticky brunch menu.

The Bottomless Brunch as a Closed Loop

The human equivalent is the bottomless brunch at a dodgy restaurant. You know the one. The “coffee” has never seen a bean, the food safety rating is a rumour, and the whole operation feels one sneeze away from a public health inquiry. Yet there you are, fork in hand, convinced that one more plate of lukewarm scrambled eggs will somehow turn the whole transaction profitable.

It’s the same logic as my dog’s alchemy: confusion of volume for value. A sunk-cost fallacy drenched in hollandaise. You’re not eating; you’re investing in a system designed to break you. And you’re praying you’ll break even with your own dignity before your gut does.

The menu item I keep returning to is the Full English variant. Not one mistake but a collection of them: egg, bacon, sausage, and a mug of coffee that tastes like regret and bitter optimism. Each component justifies the next. You eat the bacon to justify the sausage, the egg to mop up the bacon, and the coffee to wash down the mounting sense of moral compromise. It’s a flavour-based feedback loop where the only logical endpoint is a nap you don’t have time for.

It’s not even a meal at that point. It’s a contract with a minor demon. And like all contracts with minor demons, the terms only become clear when it’s too late to walk away.

The Reckoning in the Gut

There’s a precise moment when the illusion cracks. Not when you see the chef sweating over the hotplate. Not when you notice the coffee looks slightly green. It’s the moment you pause, mid-forkful, and remember: all this has got to come out.

My dog never reaches this realisation. His mind operates on a single gear: input is good, more input is better! He doesn’t run the gut-level accounting. He doesn’t factor in the exit strategy. He just sees the perpetual buffet.

I do. In that suspended breath between the last bite and the first gurgle of intestinal protest, a cold, biological dawn breaks. The plate isn’t a treat anymore. It’s a ticking invoice. A future debt no amount of dodgy coffee can offset. You’ve just realised this isn’t a bottomless well; it’s a tube with an unavoidable, and likely undignified, endpoint.

It’s the same dread that must flash through a dog’s brain moments before the inevitable, messy consequence. But he—bless his simple circular logic—never makes the connection. He’ll do it again tomorrow, barking with joy at his own renewable energy.

The Catastrophic Toast

So what do we do, in that gap between awareness and action? The same thing we always do when a system is clearly failing but we’re too far in to stop. We double down. The internal negotiator, the one who should be shouting “tactical retreat,” instead proposes a final, catastrophic piece of toast. To settle the stomach.

Go on, then. Bit of toast. Why not, its free!

That’s the thesis statement of the entire dodgy-brunch philosophy. A white-carb prayer against the inevitable. The misguided belief that adding more matter to a system already barrelling towards a messy conclusion will somehow absorb the chaos. Like throwing a sponge at a wave.

It’s the same impulse that makes a dog turn around and see his own production not as waste but as an opportunity. The same circular logic, just smeared with butter and a faint whisper of hope. The system cannot be broken, we think. It just needs more of itself.

The toast doesn’t work. It never works. It sits in the stomach like a punctuation mark on a very bad decision. A full stop made of dough that guarantees the rest of the plot will unfold in a small, regrettable room some time later.

The Fellowship of the Dodgy Establishment

This isn’t a lecture. It’s a knowing nod to the fellow traveller currently nursing a plate of metaphorical rubbery eggs, pretending they haven’t clocked the expiry date. You’re not alone. There’s a whole fellowship of us, sitting in questionable establishments, staring at the bottomless offer and thinking, “maybe this time it’ll be different.”

Maybe this time the system will work. Maybe this time the value will exceed the cost. Maybe this time the exit won’t be undignified. And then, mid-mouthful, the cold truth lands: you’re not breaking the loop. You’re just another animal, convinced that more of what you’ve already processed is the answer.

My dog has the advantage of blissful ignorance. He doesn’t sit there afterwards, contemplating his choices. He doesn’t write essays about the circular nature of his appetites. He just licks his bits, wags his tail, and gets on with the day.

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