I am on my way to work minding my own business, which means
either I am yelling at talk radio, laughing at sports radio, singing along to
anything music-related on the radio, or having an imaginary conversation with
someone who's sure to piss me off during the day so I'm fortifying my
defenses. I'm driving east on route 62,
minding my own damn business, when a box truck pulls out in front of me.
This box truck isn't really that close to me. I mean, it's not like I need to slam my
brakes on or anything. But it is still
pretty early in the morning at 7:15 a.m.
Heading east is blindingly sunny, and the road has some turns and some
traffic lights. Pulling out into traffic
when you don't have all the room to do so, especially with a box truck, isn't
the wisest decision considering the extenuating factors.
So I'm tooling along behind the box truck when I finally
notice it has a giant slice of bread painted onto the back door. It's a rolling door, so the hinged areas add
some peaks and valleys to the bread, creating a semi-realistic picture (as
though five-foot wide bread is an everyday occurrence). The truck is a little dirty and weather-worn,
so the bread on its rear has a pock-marked, grayish, dingy appearance. It's definitely bread; I'm just uncertain as
to whether or not it's the healthiest five-foot wide bread I've ever seen. You know, as if I see five-foot wide slices
of bread every single day, maybe to take with me to work as sandwiches or
something.
I notice there are words printed across the bottom of the
box truck, a script decorating the lower border just under the handle the
driver uses to pull up the door and unpack his truck. I am suddenly aghast at what I am
reading. Surely there must be some kind
of misprint! No one could possibly have
a box truck with this written on it and expect to get any business. No wonder the bread looks sickly!
Runner like a banner across the bottom under the handle, it
says, "MOLD BREAD."
Honest to God, the truck in front of me is loaded with
giant, moldy, penicillin-infested yeast products that are probably producing
alien spores at this very moment. No
wonder I'm turning into a mindless automaton at work. I've probably been eating MOLD BREAD for
weeks, maybe even months, probably even years.
My God, I've probably ingested enough MOLD BREAD to be qualified as an
alternative life form.
The truck prepares to turn right, a turn I do not take as I
continue straight for about another half-mile before turning left up the street
toward work. As the truck slows to make
the turn, I get right up into its personal space and realize there is rust, and
lots of it, running like a painted-on brown river from the handle and blotting
out some of the writing below it. The
fancy written script on the truck is supposed to read, 'Arnold Bread."
The rust has destroyed the A and part of the R. The script is in cursive, so the
"r" and the "n" roll together in the rusty umbra to form what
appears to be a letter "m." The truck may whisper "Arnold
Bread," but it actually screams at potential customers driving behind it,
"mold bread." Oh,
yummy, I think to myself (since no one else is inside my brain with me at
the moment), just what I always
wanted! Mold bread! Brilliant advertising NOT.
Mold Bread continues on its merry way, perpendicular from my
car and fading fast into the distance. I
don't think about Mold Bread until later at lunch when people around me are
eating sandwiches. Yuck. Five-foot moldy
bread. Gross.
I take my lunch out, a yogurt, and peel off the cover. This is when it hits me - not
literally but figuratively. Yogurt is
kind of moldy and pukey itself. It's all
I brought with me today. I'm stuck with
it.
Damn.
Well played, Mold Bread.
Well played, indeed.
