The Great South Florida French Bread Incident
By definition, a French Bread is a yeast-raised bread distinguished by its thick, well-browned crust, made in long, slender, tapered loaves.
I am a huge French bread fan.
HUGE!
But let’s get to the story.
It was early April. I don’t remember which day exactly; it’s all a blur now.
Kim and I were visiting my daughter and son in law in South Florida and spending some time with our newest grandson. One afternoon, I was preparing dinner and needed to go to the grocery store. It was a Publix, a grocery store chain prevalent in South Florida. I picked up what I needed for the dinner I was planning, and then I found a French bread. Not a perfect one I thought, but not bad either.
I placed my French bread in the seat of the shopping cart like I would have done if it was my infant grandson Christian; very carefully and safe and sound away from the other items.
So now having completed my shopping I went to the check out. I put all my groceries on the belt saving my French bread for last. Now safely behind the other groceries, I put the little divider out so that the customer behind me wouldn’t encroach on my bread.
The nice young lady scanned and bagged all of my groceries.
Then she got to my French bread.
I watched.
She picked it up from the middle as I would have wanted her to do, so the weight would be distributed evenly.
She scanned my bread.
Then, she very calmly grabbed it with two hands, one on each end, snapped it in half and shoved it in the bag with some other groceries.
I felt the blood draining from my skin as my face got pale. I think my bottom lip began to quiver as I stared trying to make sense of what had just happened.
I was speechless. I didn’t know what to do!
Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, she calmly asked me to swipe my card, which momentarily jarred me out of my shock and I fumbled around to find my debit card, now just reacting to commands without thinking.
Shock gripped me…was this a South Florida thing I thought?
Should I just act cool like I knew that every check out person in South Florida snaps their customer’s French breads in half to be able to fit them in the bag?
I come from a part of Jersey where snapping someone’s French bread or Italian bread in half could have dire circumstances.
Still dazed and confused I took my receipt and my bags, including my broken baguette, and went back to my daughter’s home to tell them the story of the girl who folded up my French bread and put it in the bag.
I waited to share The Great South Florida French Bread Incident because I thought that one day I would understand; one day it would have some meaning, some moral to a story that would serve as a metaphor for one of life’s indignancies.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I knew the moral of the story already.
The moral of the story is… hey South Florida; don’t be snapping people’s French breads!
If I had bought a bouquet of long stem roses for my wife from the floral section would the stems have been snapped in half and the roses shoved in a bag?
What if I got one of those long family size packages of chicken thighs, would she have busted them up so they wouldn’t poke out the top?
I don’t think so!
Why then did she disrespect my French bread? If I had wanted my bread in smaller pieces I would have bought the bag of dinner rolls instead! I want my French bread as a long, slender, tapered loaf like the definition says!
Maybe there is a message here. Maybe it is about respect. Respecting those things that are important to others or that belong to others.
It’s like going out day after day to find that your neighbor’s dog has peed on the plastic bag that contains your Washington Post as it rests on the sidewalk (me).
Or coming home and finding teenagers you don’t even know sitting around your patio smoking cigarettes and helping themselves to your cooler (yup, my patio).
Yes, I think it is about respect.
Surely, that is the moral of The Great South Florida French Bread Incident!
And I also think that there might be times when we just need a reason to laugh little again.