Give Us Today Our Daily Bread
‘Get me some bread!’ yelled the husband from his man cave. It must have been the click of the front-door lock that gave me away. For I was trying to make a quiet, dignified exit.
The husband must also have sent out a mind probe. For I was venturing out in search of precisely that – bread! Blame it on my WhatsApp groups. The Show Offers. The Mad Hatters. The Literarians. All of them posting photos of their baking skills. Crusty sourdough loaves that looked as if they’d come right off The Great British Bake-Off stamped with Paul Hollywood’s signature handshake.
Anyway, that’s why I found myself in the supermarket twenty minutes later, peering up at the various kinds of sourdough on offer. I finally picked up two loaves and took them to the slicing counter. To be met with a blank look. ‘Sorry, we don’t slice bread anymore,’ said the suspiciously teenaged looking boy there. ‘Covid regulations,’ he offered unhelpfully. Barefaced lie, I retorted. In my head.
Swearing under my breath, I trudged a further twenty minutes to Supermarket 2. Where I found the last two sourdough loaves on offer. Just looking at them made me hungry. Predictably, there was no one at the bakery counter to slice them for me. I halloo’d with full vim and vigour, but not even an echo in return.
It was a difficult manoeuvre, but I did it. Found a store assistant even as I guarded my loaves with my life. He – let’s call him Davey – was definitely not a teenager. Not a spot of acne on him. ‘I’ll just go round the back and find someone,’ he promised.
And he disappeared. While I waited, clutching desperately onto my loaves. A good five minutes passed, I swear on my Fitbit. I would not be deterred, I told myself. Then the PA system crackled into life. And Davey materialised by my side.
‘Hear that?’ he said, beaming with pride. ‘I got them to make an announcement. Someone should be here soon.’
‘Wonderful!’ I beamed right back. But all the beaming failed to conjure up a bread slicer person. Another five minutes passed. Davey came back to check on me. And found me still clutching whole loaves.
He shook his head in consternation. ‘Ahh, love, if I had gloves, I could have had a go at it for you.’ He disappeared again. I sighed. The disappearing act was entertaining all right, but there are limits to even my boredom threshold. I looked down at my loaves. Could I slice them at home? I shook my head – I’m not that optimistic.
Davey sprung up again before me, a pair of disposable gloves in his hand. ‘Got them from the deli counter,’ he told me cheerfully.
It took him the better part of three minutes to get those gloves on. What can I say? The deli counter is womanned by, well, women. And our Davey was a Welsh giant.
Gloves on, it was disappearing time again. This time into the bowels of the bakery. With my precious loaves. Another four minutes passed. I was moaning under my breath by now, ‘My bread, oh my bread!’
I should have had more faith. In Davey. Who appeared just then, a loaf of sliced sourdough and rye in each hand.
‘Took me a while to get the hang of the machine, never used it before,’ he said genially, nodding at said loaves. ‘They’re probably not sliced as well as them would have done it.’
‘They can’t be worse than what I’d have done to them at home,’ I chirped, grinning beatifically at him.
Oh Davey, my hero!
