NEEDLING

BAKED GOODS, RELIGION, AND POLITICS

I have fulfilled my civic duty this morning. I voted. It was a bit anticlimactic, being that this was the first time in my life I’ve ever voted in any kind of official governmental election. I walked into the elementary school where my bureau de vote was located. Number 46. I don’t know if this is the hangover or what’s going on, but now that I’m back home I’ve got like a little tingle going on in my bowels.

The biggest disappointment was coming out of the elementary school and taking a right towards a baker I like, the baker where I buy viennoiseries. I don’t buy anything else there. The bread I get at another baker down the street who makes the best bread in Paris.

These guys however make croissants and cinamon rolls like I’ve never tasted before. I don’t know what they do… there’s like a honey aftertaste going on with the crust… and the inside of the croissant drips with butter yet remains fluffy. They’re also about one and half the size of a normal croissant. You only need one, though sometimes when I’m feeling particularly wild and unhealthy, I get two. Pure goodness. As close as I’ve gotten to God, I think.

And that was to be my prize so to say, my present to myself for having done my civic duty rather than stay in bed. That croissant is what got me out of bed, into my blue jeans and boots, that croissant is what gave me the courage to step up to the voting table and tell the fellow sitting on his fold out chair that I’d never voted before and didn’t really know the procedure. That croissant took me inside the little booth where I folded the bulletin and slid it into the envelope. That croissant took me back outside and led me to the baker in question, where I arrived and stood outside their window to look at all his baked goods before entering, as I always do… half the pleasure being the expectation, the rise of taste buds through anticipation… and, to my utter dumbfound-ness, horrification, there was nothing on the stalls, nothing on his shelves, nothing in the bread baskets… what a dismal sight. Is there a more dismal sight than that of a baker's shelf empty of bread and other baked goodies?

In my mouth I could taste the croissant, I could feel the sweet crust crunch in betwixt my teeth, tongue… my saliva had been building up throughout my mouth getting ready for the rush the whole morning… AND! No croissant! Nothing. Just plain tiny bagel look-a-like dry things. I was horrified.

For a minute I though maybe he’d gone out of business. Then I saw the baker talking to a woman at the counter. I didn’t go in to ask what was going on, my disappointment was too great… then I realized it must be a Jewish holiday or something, the bakery being certified by the Beth Din of Paris. Is it Passover already? I didn’t think it was till next month.

I get confused with all the religious holidays. My neighborhood having religious people of the Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Catholic faiths who all run their stores according to their religious laws... I can never get any of it straight. I look forward to the Ramadan every year because the bars and restaurants mostly owned and operated by the local Kabyle population, stay open all night long, and there’s all kinds of great food all over the place being sold. The Chinese New Year is usually a blast as well with the dance of the dragon going in and out of all the Chinese stores. But that’s the extent of my religious holiday knowledge. The Jews like the Catholics keep their celebrating mostly to themselves and their families. They don’t necessarily advertise it all over the streets so unless you’re part of their group and families, which I’m not, then you don’t know what the hell’s going on. And when you go to your baker to buy your viennoiseries and he doesn’t have anything on his shelves, then your whole world is rocked upside down in ways you just don’t understand.

I went to my other baker, got a croissant there. It just didn’t cut it, though, it was all wrong. That’s what I get for doing my civic duty, I guess.