Polish people don’t eat white bread. That’s for Americans. We only eat rye—Polish rye. But not this week. This week there was a Polish problem. The deli ran out of the rye that Mom and I usually get. When we walked in and heard the news, Mom reacted as if she’d just witnessed a double homicide.
“Oh my god. No!”
We would have to try a new brand of bread, and the only thing on the shelf was Turano Rustic Rye.
“Turano?” Mom said, getting heated. “Is that Italian for ‘rip-off’?” She scrutinized the package. “And rustic? What do they know about rustic? You don’t know rustic until you’ve crapped in an outhouse for the first ten years of your life.”
Mom had a difficult childhood.
I told her we needed to be open-minded about the bread. But it was too much to ask.
“The deli is scamming us, mark my words.” Mom poked the loaf. “These slices look small.”
Mom held the package up to her face and declared that the loaf looked small, didn’t it? I shrugged. It looked appropriately loaf sized to me. Maybe her head was big.
