When I get to the checkout, I gently add the bread to the conveyer belt last and, after the purchase, I position the bread back in the separate compartment on the way to the car.
I lay the bag with the bread in the backseat, away from the boot full of other groceries.
And when I get home, I carry the bread tenderly to the kitchen where it can be safely put away.
I hate squashed bread.
This is not because I am neurotic or anal. This is because once bread is mangled, there is no way to re-fluff it. Bread is not Nerf. It is warped for life.
I freeze my bread.
Have you ever tried to pry a slice of bread from a misshapen frozen loaf? Sometimes it works. Most times it doesn’t – even if you lever the slice loose with a knife. Frozen slices of deformed bread break. Then the broken edges burn in the toaster and set off the smoke alarm (or burn your house down if the battery is flat and you’re hanging out the washing).
So, that’s why when, after 15 aisles of care and protection, the thoughtless checkout bloke mindlessly squeezes the loaf in an almighty paw or crams it in to a bag beside a couple of jumbo tins of dog food and a bottle of soda, I want to smack him.
That’s why, when the backseat completes an inexplicable and inconvenient dive (probably scoring about 9.3 but smashing the bread), I want to scream.
And why, when a kitchen helper clearly subscribes to the 'speed and pressure' theory of fitting the bread into the overstuffed freezer, I feel like kicking someone’s head in.
I do not want to make breadcrumbs with it, bake a bread and butter pudding with it or feed the ducks with it. I want to freeze it. I want to toast it without needing a fire extinguisher.
A bent sense of humour is admirable. A bent loaf of bread is unacceptable.
I wish bakers would package bread in something robust to alleviate my angst.
Image: Paul
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