What’s the opposite of bread?
Caviar maybe. Bread is the food of the people; in fact, I think this is the fifth year in a row that Bread has won the People’s Choice Award for Most Available Food. I know exactly where bread is located in a grocery store and that it’s cheap. Caviar on the other hand, I haven’t the faintest clue if they sell it at your neighborhood Walmart or how big a bite it eats out of your wallet.
The Walmart cashier: “That’ll cost you an arm or a leg.”
For reasons that can’t be shared, you desperately need the caviar, so reluctantly you chop off your leg and hand over the payment.
The cashier, having already taken the leg, stares expectantly back at you.
“Well, is it enough?” you ask annoyed, struggling to stay balanced with your new one-legged reality.
“No… it isn’t kosher. We at Walmart have the utmost standards of excellence,” says the underage, underdressed (but at least well-spoken) cashier. “First off, clearly this leg wasn’t cleaned before transaction. There’s blood everywhere and the cut lines were amaturiously done. The toenails haven’t been clipped and, my god, the leg reeks. You’ve used a shower before, haven’t you?
“Apart from the showmanship, suppose that wasn’t the problem, the quality of leg is depleted. Might fetch a deal at the abomination Target but not here, no sir. To be honest, this here leg isn’t in great shape, guessing it’s seen more blue light than sunlight. Not to be rude but this leg has an aura of sluggishness, gluetony, and iniquity. Three of your legs would value one quality leg.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you need the caviar?”
You’ve been standing - strike that, struggling to stand - while listening to this nimwit bash your now-lost leg. The leg was chopped in vain and now you’re irate. Things have escalated too quickly. Utmost standards of quality my ass!, you pull a banana out from your pocket and shoot the cashier dead.
Before hopping away from the ensuing panic and sounded alarm you scream, “Next time I’m buying bread!”
***
If it isn’t caviar, maybe cake is the opposite of bread. I took a poll at my dinner table and 100% of the respondents believed cake was the opposite of bread. Granted, the sample size consisted of one other person.
My dad reasoned: a while back, people in France were starving to death with no bread to be seen. So they went to the queen in need of assistance. She kindly responded, “Let them eat cake.”
The peasants looked to one another before agreeing, “Yes, that’s the perfect substitute food; why hadn't we thought of that sooner.”
Well not really, in reality, that was the exact wrong answer so they chopped off her head (among other reasons).
***
A brick? Bread provides nutritional value, but a brick is the last item you’d find in your pantry.
“There’s no food in here,” says a kid rummaging through a poorly-stocked (but stocked nonetheless) pantry.
“Yes there is,” responds a mom. “Keep digging.”
Loud noises exit the pantry for a bit, followed by the kid himself. He’s carrying a brick.
“What’s that?” asks the mom.
“I kept digging and found this.”
The mom’s eyes widened in blazing speed, from squint to full-sclera in one tenth of a second. (That’s the speed you blink; I just googled it. Pretty neat.) The mom screams, “Kid! That’s part of the structural integrity of the house. The house is going to collapse!”
Sure enough, the house starts to shake as a loud rumbling rises from the floorboards. They’ve only one minute to exit.
“Quick!” shouts the mom, “You’ve got time to save one item from your crumbling house - what do you choose?”
“Let’s just leave.”
“This isn’t a hypothetical, make a choice!”
“You're hurting me mom, let me go!”
“Come-on kid, I’ve got to know, what item is it?”
While the house falls to pieces around them, the kid struggles to escape the clutches of the unlikely (but for him, very real) hypothetical question. His mom doesn’t let go and they both get smashed as the house caves in on itself.
***
You’ve just come up with an idea for an intriguing post, one that poses a thought provoking question about a simple food. After writing up a draft you look around the drawing room and are horrified to see a pileup of body parts. An amputated leg. A severed head. Two smashed corpses. What the hell happened you ask yourself. How did it come to this? It was supposed to be just bread. Just bread...
Anyways, something to think about: What’s the opposite of bread?
