I have been frequenting the same boulangerie for a long time now, and I have a story that originates from its premises. It developed over at least a two month span and, like waiting for dough to double in volume, I had to have patience during its unfolding. The bread thatcomes from this bakery is at best sustenance, and only worth buying because it is necessary sometimes to be a slave to convenience; it is in a part of a main grocery store in La Clayette, perfect if there are only five minutes before the traditional closing of its doors at the lunch break. Otherwise one would have to drive into the main town to buy absolutely wonderful bread. I curse my timing every time I must face the next turn of events at The Boulangerie of the Intermarché.

The bread shop is right in front of the exit where the frozen bundles of dough smell lovely as they bake cheap imitations of the magnificent bread found elsewhere. Naturally, one is lured to the counter to pick up a loaf of better than nothing. After several visits I became accustomed to the sour dough there. I speak now not of the staff of life, but the staff selling the stuff. Man, how anyone can have such a miserable disposition is beyond me, but I assure you that this woman hates her job, if not her very existence. I am not alone in my observation either. Having mentioned these experiences to long-time residents of La Clayette, I have found comrades in my judgment. I have only to mention the fact that there is a woman there who seems to always wear ... I let my sentence drift off and my companion provides the mimicking confirmation of the clerk’s sour puss.

So, one could just buy the bread and get out. That would be simple enough, but this woman really flogs her misery. The first few times I bought bread there I was nervous about understanding the money and getting the gender of the bread right and was just happy to have received the thing I was hoping for, and getting change. Soon though, I noticed that
whenever I pleasantly requested a loaf of bread from the bins of freshly baked goods, my purchases were of the particularly mutated variety. I’m not joking. I was sold bent baguettes and baguettes burned to a crisp, loaves that had spread to bursting before entering the oven and, worse yet, all lopsided and clearly revealing that they were backed into a corner of the hearth. This got to be quite disheartening and when I noticed other people staring at my warped purchases, the jig was up. It’s one thing to take home a deformed pain but I draw the line at being a dumping ground for rejected, unwanted loaves. As time went on, the quality of the breads declined steadily, and I was now receiving the over-baked ones and loaves clearly destined for the bread crumb machine of fate!

Once I ordered, from this unfriendly crust, six croissants. She filled my order into a paper bag in the back room where I imagined they were still warm and flaky, straight out of the oven. Paying for the delicious smelling delicacies I took my buttery delights home, gently protecting their million layers of fragile pastry. Now, do you think that they were the angelic creation that I had anticipated? Wrong! This woman had hand picked the blackest briquettes in the joint. I was furious. My French was getting better, my patience worse. An ill wind was blowing her way. I was like a yeast dough left too long, ready to blow into a big ball of goo all over this hag!

Not long after, I found myself and my kids, once again, at the Intermarché. I stepped up to the counter and politely asked for a marguerite. This is a dense bread made by placing balls of dough to rise in the shape of a flower and hence the name. They rise as swollen petals around a round center and tear off, oh, so nicely at dinner. The %@*%! She handed me her favorite, the one she’d been saving for me all day. I’d almost say she was grinning if I wasn’t relying on my (sometimes faulty!) memory. Well folks, let me describe this bread very simply. It wasn’t quite round, as it oughta be. More precisely it looked like a wheel from a vehicle after the sounds ‘flap, flap, flap’ bring it to a shuddering halt. I felt like kicking the old tire, but she was on the other side of the counter holding her hand out for remuneration, if you can believe it. She asked for it. For all the lousy loaves gone by, for her bitter manner and unpleasant, unfriendly mug, she was going to pay. On the inside my emotions were rolling around like a spitball on a hot griddle. I forced a poisonous smile and quicker than you could drop a snake from a salad fork, handed her back the blasphemous blight. Having expected some coin, you can imagine the look of short circuit notions running across her face now. “Madame, (I said), “I asked for a loaf of bread, not a flat tire. Give me another. This one is not good. Not even that one; I want that one right there!”

She mumbled something about, “oh something a little less brown?” behind an embarrassed, weak smile and gave me the loaf that I wanted. I paid and felt all my stress magically dissolve. As a matter of a fact I ripped off hunks of the flour dusted crust and handed it to the kids right there and then. Ah, I had done it! And just as an added bit of interest, things changed at the boulangerie for me from that day forward. Oh, the bread was still the same, and the yeasty beast was still as sour as ever, but there was definitely a change in who got the bummer buns, and it wasn’t me any more!