By Sola Adeyegbe
An Important Public Service Announcement to All Lovers of Bread 🍞 😂
My dear fellow citizens of the Republic of Bread,
There are two kinds of bread in this world: your bread and our bread.
The distinction is very important. Indeed, the peace, stability and continued existence of many otherwise happy households may depend on it.
Let me explain.
1. IF THE BREAD IS YOURS, AND YOURS ALONE…
Congratulations! You are the Supreme Commander of that loaf.
Do with it as you please.
Tear it apart with your bare hands. Attack it from the middle. Bite directly into it. Dig a tunnel through it. Sculpt it into the map of Africa. Create valleys, mountains, craters and other geographical wonders.
If you wish to eat only the soft interior and leave the crust looking like an abandoned construction project, that is entirely your business.
Nobody will arrest you. The Bread Police have no jurisdiction here.
BUT PLEASE!
When you have finished your artistic and archaeological excavations, kindly take the surviving loaf to your room.
Do not return it to the kitchen.
I repeat: DO NOT RETURN IT TO THE KITCHEN!
There are innocent people in that house who may open the bread bag expecting breakfast, only to discover what looks like the remains of a violent encounter between a loaf of bread and a hungry crocodile.
Some people have high blood pressure. Others are managing their emotions. Please do not add bread-related trauma to their problems.
Enjoy your private loaf in peace, away from those who may be jealousing the special relationship between you and your carbohydrates.
2. IF THE BREAD BELONGS TO THE WHOLE HOUSEHOLD…
Ah! My friend, the Constitution has changed.
You are no longer a monarch. You are now a citizen of a democratic republic.
And in this republic, we use a bread knife.
Not your fingers.
Not your teeth.
Not your fingernails.
And certainly not that mysterious technique where you hold the loaf down with one hand and wrestle a portion out of it with the other, as though you are trying to subdue a stubborn goat.
Please. We are not in the wilderness.
Take the bread knife. Cut a decent slice. Take only what you intend to eat.
Do not cut half the loaf because your appetite has made promises your stomach cannot fulfil.
That is not hunger. That is political ambition.
And please, cut the bread in a straight line. We are sharing breakfast, not conducting an experiment in abstract architecture.
When you have finished, clean the knife and leave it where the next bread lover can find it.
Then sit down peacefully and enjoy your portion with tea, cocoa, butter, eggs, beans, akara, or whatever the Nature has graciously arranged for your morning.
And as you eat, spare a kind thought for the next person.
May their slice be straight. May their bread be soft. May their butter spread easily. And may they never encounter a loaf that looks as though somebody has been mining for gold inside it.
3. NOW, A WORD ABOUT BUTTER… 🧈
This matter deserves its own national conference.
Why, in the name of all that is civilised, must butter remain imprisoned in its original paper wrapper until the very last gram?
You open the refrigerator and there it is: a tired, greasy, crumpled piece of paper, folded and refolded like an ancient land document.
Inside, a battered lump of butter, bearing the fingerprints, knife marks and criminal evidence of every person who has visited it since Monday.
My people, what is this?
Please buy a butter dish!
Liberate the butter!
Transfer it into a respectable container and allow it to live with dignity.
Butter has suffered enough.
And while we are on the subject, please do not use the same knife to transfer breadcrumbs, jam, egg yolk and yesterday’s unidentified breakfast into the butter.
We asked for butter, not a documentary of everything you have eaten this week.
When you have served yourself properly, look into the nearest mirror and declare with confidence:
“I am neat. I am considerate. I am a responsible adult. I do not terrorise innocent loaves of bread.”
Then smile.
You are making progress in life.
IN CONCLUSION…
Dear friends, civilisation does not begin with expensive clothes, impressive titles, foreign accents or the ability to pronounce croissant correctly.
Sometimes, civilisation begins with the simple understanding that the bread in the kitchen is not your personal wrestling opponent.
Let us therefore eat with joy, slice with wisdom, butter with dignity, and leave behind a loaf that the next person can recognise without requiring forensic assistance.
May your bread always be fresh, your tea never grow cold, and your household never have cause to convene an emergency meeting over a mutilated loaf.
Have a gloriously buttery, wonderfully civilised and completely scandal-free bread-eating day! 🍞😂
With love, laughter and a properly cleaned bread knife,
SA
