Tuesday, April 21, 2009

(cursed) Amish (chain letter) Friendship Bread

Saturday afternoon I'm driving Fred back from dropping off his car for some work and he tells me someone at work gave him this secret Amish bread that you only know about if someone gives it to you and only the Amish know what it's made out of, and because all the batches go all the way back to the first Amish person who passed it off on someone who's not Amish they're all really the same loaf.

My response: what?

He tells me you get this letter telling you to do certain things on certain days to the 'starter' that comes with the chain letter (a Ziploc freezer bag of goop) and then on day ten you divide up the goop into other freezer bags and pass them on and bake bread with what remains.

And then he tells me since he's going away for a few days it's my job to deal with day ten.

The bread actually came out really good. It's got a lot of cinnamon in it, and it's soft and sweet, very good hot.

So, I get to the 'pay it forward' part of the process and one neighbor isn't home, another is psyched because she hasn't gotten this in years, and another...

The lady who lives diagonal to me, when she moved in, she tried to interview everyone on out street since her son was going to be living with her and she wants to make sure we're all safe or something. I missed that interview (like five years ago) and she's still a little shifty about me and my mom. So, I see her in her driveway and I'm like O HAI and do you like bread? and tell her the whole thing about this Amish Friendship Bread thing.

And she's like great! sounds good! sounds delicious! ..... do i have to do anything?

And I'm like Well, yes, you have to bake it.

And she says "oh, well, I don't want to do anything. If it was already done I'd take it."

Which makes me think of the Little Red Hen.

Like, what am I supposed to do? Bring her a cooked loaf of bread every ten days?

And then, in other news, semi-stolen from the kind of thing Not Always Right would post, I was at JoAnn's the other day trying to deal with a special order they had to cancel when the lady in front of me started hassling the cashier.

Cashier: *ringing up glue sticks*

Customer: Can't you just bulk ring those up? I'm in a hurry.

Cashier: They're all singles... Ok, they're done.

Customer: Can I use a coupon?

Cashier: If you like.

Customer: Can I use two coupons?

Cashier: If they're not the same, sure.

Customer: *hands over two of the same coupon*

Cashier: Um, these are the same.

Customer: No, they're not. I cut them out of two different newspapers.

Cashier: ...

Customer: Well? Are you going to take them?

Cashier: I can't take them both, they're the same.

And then once the lady is all rung up and paid and everything she just stands there pawing through her shopping bag, counting stuff and checking the receipt and doing math. WHILE BLOCKING THE LINE.

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