Dakotafreaks
Dakotafreak One
Some people get more worked up over bread than others. Some people get more particularly worked up over certain TYPES of bread than others. We make a bread called 'Dakota'. It is a wheat bread with seeds and although it is fairly tasty, I just dont get the weird loyalty it inspires.
We only make this bread a couple of times a week, so people whose lives depend on having it need to make sure they pick it up on that day or call us to reserve some loaves. I am always surprised at people's unwillingness to do this. They KNOW they want the bread, they must KNOW they will be pissed off if they come in and it is all gone- so why not save themselves the worry and stress and general uncertainty of life and just ORDER it so it will be here waiting for them?
But mostly, they don't. This leads to all sorts of frantic scanning of the racks for dakota and veiled threats thinly disguised as humor - 'Now you DO have some dakota for me THIS week, dont you? You know how upset I get if you dont have it, ha ha'- and also craned necks into the back kitchen and saying in faintly confused tones, ' but are you SURE you dont have any anywhere else? Maybe in the back?'
Our stock sotto voce reply to that one at the back worktable is ' just one moment sir/m'am, while I pull a loaf of dakota out of my ass. For you know that is where all bread comes from'. We often roll our eyes at one another while we say this as well.
Dakotafreaks are a suspicious lot, even more so than people looking for raspberry muffins or the last Cinnamon Swirl. They doubt not only you and everything you tell them, but also the proof of their own senses as well; although there is no dakota to be SEEN, and no sign up for it and you have told them you are sold out or that it wont be made until Saturday (usually to the SAME PEOPLE every week, sigh) they keep looking for it and making confused noises like kittens being weaned.
Last week the dough for the dakota sat too long and overproofed and we had to just dump it. It was too late in the bake to start any more at that point, so we just didnt have any. It was a sad damn day in Mudville that day, I can tell you. I felt like I was telling kids on Christmas morning that there wasnt any Santa when the faces fell and then turned to glares as they either settled for some other bread or stalked out.
Then a woman called the other day and wanted to know if we were still making dakota on Saturday and I told her yes. The conversation then went something like this:
"Well, I know you USUALLY do, but last week you told me it went bad and you DIDNT have any. I just wanted to make sure that wasnt going to be a regular occurence, because I NEED to be sure I'll have it."
"No, m'am, we're still on the same schedule. It was just a freak thing with the dough; it almost never happens."
"So you're GUARENTEEING me that it wont happen again this week? If I place an order, you guarentee nothing will go wrong with the dough?"
*brief blank pause from Bakerygirl while I ask silently for strength*
"M'am, I can't guarentee that nothing will go wrong; things go wrong sometimes, it was sort of like an Act of God, you know? But it happens very VERY rarely and it's REALLY unlikely that there will be any problem with it this week."
*note of pained triumph in customer's voice*
"So what you're saying then is that you CANT guarentee that it will be there! If I call first thing in the morning can you tell me if its ready?"
"It wont be ready until about 10 am, m'am. But if you would like to call in the morning you're certainly welcome to."
"Ten am?!" *shocked surprise* "Isn't that awfully late? It's such a GOOD bread, I would think you'd make it the very first thing!"
(customers not only assume that their favorite bread is EVERYONE'S favorite- they also don't seem to understand that the entire concept of fresh bread means that it requires mixing and actual, you know, BAKING. When told it will not be immediately available any time of day or night for their personal convienence, they often get wiggy)
*suspicious final note in customer's voice*
"are you sure this bread is fresh?"
She placed an order for that Saturday for ten loaves which your Bakerygirl dutifully recorded and filed on the proper day. When I came in at noon on Saturday, one of the other girls told me she had called in the morning after it was made and cancelled the entire order.
***
Dakotafreak II
This was really weird. I was closing on a Saturday with Liz, one of the high school girls and at EXACTLY five thirty I locked first the side door and then the front. Just as I was leaving the front door, a girl came up and tried the door and I said, ' sorry, we're closing' and she turned and left.
About five minutes later I was washing out the coffee stuff and I hear this pounding on the glass side door. Liz was mopping the floor nearby and went to investigate and I saw her leaning into the glass to see or hear what the person on the other side was saying. She backed carefully away from the door, as if it held back a tiger or something, not turning her face from it until she was closer to me and said with wide eyes,
"Bakerygirl, this woman says we closed up early and when she sent her daughter for bread we wouldnt let her in. She's ... freaking out."
And boy was she. She was tapping her fingers on the glass door, which was an improvement over the Graduate-like pounding from earlier, but still. So I walked over and unlocked the door and let her in. She immediately got up in my face, so my impression of her was very clear and is still somewhat imprinted upon my brain:
She was bony and thin, possibly early forties with that unnaturally tight skin around her eyes and jaw that you get from a few nip and tucks too many. She had an orangish out of season tan, and was wearing what was an obviously expensive camel cashmere wrap with a giant and very ugly fake flower jewel/fabric thing on the shoulder. Low waist jeans in sized super skinny sort of hung from her hips and made her look sort of like an aging soon to be mummified Brittney Spears' mother wanna be. The overall effect was so UN-sexy looking it was creepy.
Thrusting a bony wrist under my nose as if she were going to shove her diamond and silver watch up my nostril, the customer starting ranting, I mean REALLY ranting about how it had NOT been five thirty yet when we locked the doors, it COULD not have been, see this watch, and how DARE we lock her daughter out of the bakery so that she had to PARK up the street and get OUT OF THE CAR and WALK down here and she wasnt going to stand for it.
wow.
I ask you, what is a Bakerygirl to do at such a moment? Please believe me, kind readers that a huge part of my brain was furiously saying 'Are you a freaking nut job, lady? And poor baby you had to actually get out of your car and drag your bony fad diet ass down here to scream at me about BREAD??'
But my mother would have been proud. For I remembered my girl scout/junior lifeguard/babysitter training and remained calm- although I did step back out of watch waving range. I said calmly that I had locked the doors at exactly five thirty and that I was sorry about her daughter but if she had told me what she had wanted instead of leaving immediately, I would have been glad to get it for her, as I hadnt closed out the registers yet.
She kept up with the watch and how it had taken her under a minute to walk from her car, blah, blah,blah, and I told her again in my 'infuriatingly calm and disconnected polite voice' (c'mon, you all KNOW you have one too) that unfortunately I did not have her watch and that I had to go by the clock on the bakery wall.
I have a small confession, dear readers: I was really irritated about this, but she was so over the top wacky with it, that I was almost enjoying seeing how calm I could stay and how much more pissed she was getting.
Finally she gave it up and hissed at me through her blindingly professionally whitened teeth,
"Can I just get a loaf of dakota? That is ALL I came here for, can you at LEAST just do that for me??!?"
I could tell she was expecting to get it for free, since she had been so mortally wronged by the big bad world of bakery, so I smiled sweetly and said "Certainly. Let me ring one right up for you- luckily the registers havent been cashed out yet!" all with a big cheery smile.
She paid me and then came in for one last strike, hissing,
"You havent heard the last of this! I'm going to be calling the owner or your manager- you dont understand what you've gotten into!"
***
Well.
Dear readers, this left me with a few thoughts. First off, how sad, really sad, that someone can obviously have spent so much time and money and effort on body and clothing and attempting to be attractive and have such incredibly UNATTRACTIVE results. I mean, ok, she was yelling at me, so granted I am a tad biased here. But even just on her own, this woman looked almost like the mother in the film Brazil; a caricature of what she was supposed to look like.
But worst of all was her dreadful personality. It wouldnt have mattered how she looked with that kind of crazed self-centeredness.
I just thought, ' how really MEAN that the last thing you can think of to do is to THREATEN me. To imply that you will complain so that I lose this pathetic low-paying job. I could be out on the streets because of your complaint and you dont even give a damn- it does not OCCUR to you to give a damn- all because you had to get out of your car and walk to the bakery because you got here late. You just want to scare me with your percieved power and make me worry for my job.'
What a sad mean way to be...
Incidentally, she never did call.
She did however come in one other time. It was an afternoon and she was hanging back near the door in another weirdly designer outfit meant to look casual, but not looking that way at all. She was with another woman who bought something, went to the door and they walked out. Then the other woman returned and said "My friend wants a piece of bread from the breadboard."
I cut it for her and smiled as she walked outside and gave it to the bitch. Even if I dont always want to be here- I am still here. The bakery is mine and on some weird level you were AFRAID to confront me even enough to ask for a slice of free bread. Eat it and enjoy- you obviously don't get much other enjoyment out of your life, dakotafreak.
Stay sane, xxxooo Bakerygirl
Some people get more worked up over bread than others. Some people get more particularly worked up over certain TYPES of bread than others. We make a bread called 'Dakota'. It is a wheat bread with seeds and although it is fairly tasty, I just dont get the weird loyalty it inspires.
We only make this bread a couple of times a week, so people whose lives depend on having it need to make sure they pick it up on that day or call us to reserve some loaves. I am always surprised at people's unwillingness to do this. They KNOW they want the bread, they must KNOW they will be pissed off if they come in and it is all gone- so why not save themselves the worry and stress and general uncertainty of life and just ORDER it so it will be here waiting for them?
But mostly, they don't. This leads to all sorts of frantic scanning of the racks for dakota and veiled threats thinly disguised as humor - 'Now you DO have some dakota for me THIS week, dont you? You know how upset I get if you dont have it, ha ha'- and also craned necks into the back kitchen and saying in faintly confused tones, ' but are you SURE you dont have any anywhere else? Maybe in the back?'
Our stock sotto voce reply to that one at the back worktable is ' just one moment sir/m'am, while I pull a loaf of dakota out of my ass. For you know that is where all bread comes from'. We often roll our eyes at one another while we say this as well.
Dakotafreaks are a suspicious lot, even more so than people looking for raspberry muffins or the last Cinnamon Swirl. They doubt not only you and everything you tell them, but also the proof of their own senses as well; although there is no dakota to be SEEN, and no sign up for it and you have told them you are sold out or that it wont be made until Saturday (usually to the SAME PEOPLE every week, sigh) they keep looking for it and making confused noises like kittens being weaned.
Last week the dough for the dakota sat too long and overproofed and we had to just dump it. It was too late in the bake to start any more at that point, so we just didnt have any. It was a sad damn day in Mudville that day, I can tell you. I felt like I was telling kids on Christmas morning that there wasnt any Santa when the faces fell and then turned to glares as they either settled for some other bread or stalked out.
Then a woman called the other day and wanted to know if we were still making dakota on Saturday and I told her yes. The conversation then went something like this:
"Well, I know you USUALLY do, but last week you told me it went bad and you DIDNT have any. I just wanted to make sure that wasnt going to be a regular occurence, because I NEED to be sure I'll have it."
"No, m'am, we're still on the same schedule. It was just a freak thing with the dough; it almost never happens."
"So you're GUARENTEEING me that it wont happen again this week? If I place an order, you guarentee nothing will go wrong with the dough?"
*brief blank pause from Bakerygirl while I ask silently for strength*
"M'am, I can't guarentee that nothing will go wrong; things go wrong sometimes, it was sort of like an Act of God, you know? But it happens very VERY rarely and it's REALLY unlikely that there will be any problem with it this week."
*note of pained triumph in customer's voice*
"So what you're saying then is that you CANT guarentee that it will be there! If I call first thing in the morning can you tell me if its ready?"
"It wont be ready until about 10 am, m'am. But if you would like to call in the morning you're certainly welcome to."
"Ten am?!" *shocked surprise* "Isn't that awfully late? It's such a GOOD bread, I would think you'd make it the very first thing!"
(customers not only assume that their favorite bread is EVERYONE'S favorite- they also don't seem to understand that the entire concept of fresh bread means that it requires mixing and actual, you know, BAKING. When told it will not be immediately available any time of day or night for their personal convienence, they often get wiggy)
*suspicious final note in customer's voice*
"are you sure this bread is fresh?"
She placed an order for that Saturday for ten loaves which your Bakerygirl dutifully recorded and filed on the proper day. When I came in at noon on Saturday, one of the other girls told me she had called in the morning after it was made and cancelled the entire order.
***
Dakotafreak II
This was really weird. I was closing on a Saturday with Liz, one of the high school girls and at EXACTLY five thirty I locked first the side door and then the front. Just as I was leaving the front door, a girl came up and tried the door and I said, ' sorry, we're closing' and she turned and left.
About five minutes later I was washing out the coffee stuff and I hear this pounding on the glass side door. Liz was mopping the floor nearby and went to investigate and I saw her leaning into the glass to see or hear what the person on the other side was saying. She backed carefully away from the door, as if it held back a tiger or something, not turning her face from it until she was closer to me and said with wide eyes,
"Bakerygirl, this woman says we closed up early and when she sent her daughter for bread we wouldnt let her in. She's ... freaking out."
And boy was she. She was tapping her fingers on the glass door, which was an improvement over the Graduate-like pounding from earlier, but still. So I walked over and unlocked the door and let her in. She immediately got up in my face, so my impression of her was very clear and is still somewhat imprinted upon my brain:
She was bony and thin, possibly early forties with that unnaturally tight skin around her eyes and jaw that you get from a few nip and tucks too many. She had an orangish out of season tan, and was wearing what was an obviously expensive camel cashmere wrap with a giant and very ugly fake flower jewel/fabric thing on the shoulder. Low waist jeans in sized super skinny sort of hung from her hips and made her look sort of like an aging soon to be mummified Brittney Spears' mother wanna be. The overall effect was so UN-sexy looking it was creepy.
Thrusting a bony wrist under my nose as if she were going to shove her diamond and silver watch up my nostril, the customer starting ranting, I mean REALLY ranting about how it had NOT been five thirty yet when we locked the doors, it COULD not have been, see this watch, and how DARE we lock her daughter out of the bakery so that she had to PARK up the street and get OUT OF THE CAR and WALK down here and she wasnt going to stand for it.
wow.
I ask you, what is a Bakerygirl to do at such a moment? Please believe me, kind readers that a huge part of my brain was furiously saying 'Are you a freaking nut job, lady? And poor baby you had to actually get out of your car and drag your bony fad diet ass down here to scream at me about BREAD??'
But my mother would have been proud. For I remembered my girl scout/junior lifeguard/babysitter training and remained calm- although I did step back out of watch waving range. I said calmly that I had locked the doors at exactly five thirty and that I was sorry about her daughter but if she had told me what she had wanted instead of leaving immediately, I would have been glad to get it for her, as I hadnt closed out the registers yet.
She kept up with the watch and how it had taken her under a minute to walk from her car, blah, blah,blah, and I told her again in my 'infuriatingly calm and disconnected polite voice' (c'mon, you all KNOW you have one too) that unfortunately I did not have her watch and that I had to go by the clock on the bakery wall.
I have a small confession, dear readers: I was really irritated about this, but she was so over the top wacky with it, that I was almost enjoying seeing how calm I could stay and how much more pissed she was getting.
Finally she gave it up and hissed at me through her blindingly professionally whitened teeth,
"Can I just get a loaf of dakota? That is ALL I came here for, can you at LEAST just do that for me??!?"
I could tell she was expecting to get it for free, since she had been so mortally wronged by the big bad world of bakery, so I smiled sweetly and said "Certainly. Let me ring one right up for you- luckily the registers havent been cashed out yet!" all with a big cheery smile.
She paid me and then came in for one last strike, hissing,
"You havent heard the last of this! I'm going to be calling the owner or your manager- you dont understand what you've gotten into!"
***
Well.
Dear readers, this left me with a few thoughts. First off, how sad, really sad, that someone can obviously have spent so much time and money and effort on body and clothing and attempting to be attractive and have such incredibly UNATTRACTIVE results. I mean, ok, she was yelling at me, so granted I am a tad biased here. But even just on her own, this woman looked almost like the mother in the film Brazil; a caricature of what she was supposed to look like.
But worst of all was her dreadful personality. It wouldnt have mattered how she looked with that kind of crazed self-centeredness.
I just thought, ' how really MEAN that the last thing you can think of to do is to THREATEN me. To imply that you will complain so that I lose this pathetic low-paying job. I could be out on the streets because of your complaint and you dont even give a damn- it does not OCCUR to you to give a damn- all because you had to get out of your car and walk to the bakery because you got here late. You just want to scare me with your percieved power and make me worry for my job.'
What a sad mean way to be...
Incidentally, she never did call.
She did however come in one other time. It was an afternoon and she was hanging back near the door in another weirdly designer outfit meant to look casual, but not looking that way at all. She was with another woman who bought something, went to the door and they walked out. Then the other woman returned and said "My friend wants a piece of bread from the breadboard."
I cut it for her and smiled as she walked outside and gave it to the bitch. Even if I dont always want to be here- I am still here. The bakery is mine and on some weird level you were AFRAID to confront me even enough to ask for a slice of free bread. Eat it and enjoy- you obviously don't get much other enjoyment out of your life, dakotafreak.
Stay sane, xxxooo Bakerygirl
posted by ReesieKitty at 8:18 PM
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