Day 41

I saw something yesterday and I feel compelled to write about it.

It was something many people would have disregarded, but being the over-analytical and baby-crazed person that I am, it hit me. Literally. The kid wacked me with her 3 foot French baguette as she ran to catch up with her Pa. I’ll explain.

When you have an hourly countdown going on in your head for when you will be able to enjoy something next, life becomes a reflective and provocative thing. In my head. I’m thinking all day long about bread. It’s all encompassing. Did you know that if you search “Bread” on thesaurus.com, the first definition for it is “daily food”? Ironic.

But back to the grocery store and the mean little kid. I was shopping for dinner. It was decided we would make chicken, again.

And I don’t know how this happened, but I was once an American girl who hated beer, refused meat, and overdosed on bread daily. I have become an Irish squatter who grills her own chicken fillets, and has replaced her nightly dinner roll with a Guinness nightcap.

But again, back to the grocery store. I was wandering around with chicken in one hand, stack of oaties in the other, and I see this cute little girl standing in the middle of the aisle with her back to me. Sporting ringlets and big rubber boots, she was uncoordinatedly following behind her (assumed to be) dad. I went about my shopping (definitely not oodling over the cutest little Irish offspring I’d ever seen), when she turned around abruptly and I saw that she had a baguette the size of a Subway sub clenched in her dinky little hands. Man, she was a sight. Slobber rolling down the torn-open packaging that I could only hope she wasn’t swallowing in her fervor. She looked at me, ripped off another bite of her tightly held prize, then spun and ran away.

Did she know? Did she do that on purpose because she knew I couldn’t be doing that? Even if this whole lent thing was over? Let’s be real. Me slobbering on a stick of bread in the frozen foods aisle wouldn’t emit the same reaction from passerby’s as the toddler in polka dots.

I tried to put it out of my mind.

As I neared the queue to pay, I saw her again in front of me. She had probably devoured at least a third of it by then. Her father, after paying for actual baby mush and suitable forms of food for teething infants, took the bread from her so the the unlucky cashier could scan it. And in that instant, that girl must have had all the sadness in the world come out of her eyes. Tears ensued. Quickly realizing the mistake he had made, Dad gave the bread back to the girl, who snatched it and started off without him.

And I stood there, and thought to myself. This girl and I are not that far off each other. Sure, we are citizens of different countries, and I have about 4 feet in height on her, but on the inside, we’re exactly the same. That would be me, without cognitive awareness or acceptable social behavior skills. That girl is going to grow up, and maybe she will become the next Irish Taoiseach. Or maybe she’ll be a street performer on Grafton St. Either way, she’s going to do great things, I can tell. With a passion like that, why not?

A few days ago, a Dubliner told me that “Aran” is Irish for “bread”. It’s a dreadful language, Gaelic. Independent/dependent forms of verbs, some short vowels are lengthened while others are diphthongized… terrible.

I love it.