Wednesday of Last Week
Unless Clare has a question about a car repair or an unusual bird she’s seen, she seldom calls me on the phone. Sometimes she calls Manyu and asks me to join the conversation, but she doesn’t usually call me directly. Wednesday night she called.

Seeing Clare’s name on my cellphone screen after 10pm would ordinarily worry me, but this time I was pleased. Only a few minutes earlier the Milwaukee Brewers had won Game 5 of the World Series to capture the Series four games to one. I knew that she was calling me to celebrate. I was already thrilled that the Brewers, after fifty-seven years, had finally won their first championship. My daughter’s call was icing on the cake.

To my surprise, Clare was as excited as I was. She told me that she and her boyfriend Chase had gone to sports bars on both of the nights that the Brewers had a chance to finish it (they lost the first night and won on the second). Chase grew up in Nebraska and went to college in Iowa, so I knew that joining a crowd to watch the Brewers was my daughter’s idea, not his. Clare told me that her boyfriend of five years had just seen a side of her that he didn’t know existed.

I, unlike Clare, didn’t watch any of the World Series. I would have been too stressed to enjoy it. Instead I distracted myself with crime novels and tv shows, checking the score online every half hour. I can watch Brewer games during the regular season, as the stakes are much lower, but the outcome of playoff games keeps me awake at night. When the Brewers lose, I’m too upset to sleep. When they win, I’m too excited to sleep. On Wednesday night, I was still awake at 2am even though I hadn’t watched the game.

Thursday
On Thursday night, it occurred to me that if my daughter’s phone call warmed my heart, I should call my mom to talk about the Series. She subscribes to the Brewers TV Network and has watched almost every game this season. When she answered the phone and I mentioned the Brewers, she immediately replied, “Yes, wasn’t it something? Thanks for calling, but I’m watching the Packer game now. I’ll call tomorrow. Bye.”

That was not the reaction I was expecting, but it was my own fault. No one in Wisconsin calls a friend or a family member during a Packer game. I knew that they played on Thursday that week, but because I avoid Packer games for the same reason that I avoid the Brewers during the playoffs, I’d lost track of the day and the time. I didn’t realize that I was calling in the middle of the game.

Friday
At Milwaukee’s celebratory parade on Friday, 750,000 people showed up. The public schools were closed so elementary school kids could someday tell their children and grandchildren that they were there. While all of this was happening, I was quietly donating a pint of blood back in La Crosse. Not surprisingly, the gift for donating was a Milwaukee Brewers teeshirt.

The entire state of Wisconsin is on a Brewer high right now. I hope that the election results on Tuesday extend the good feelings. 

It’s been a quiet week. I went fishing twice, I played cards once. Otherwise the days have been so uneventful that this week’s blog is about buying a loaf of bread.

On Sunday Manyu asked me to go to Olive Garden to get her a bowl of chicken gnocchi soup. On her restrictive diet, it is one of few lunches that she can enjoy without feeling sick afterwards. As long as I was driving to the mall area for soup, I thought that I would stop at Hy-Vee for a fresh loaf of sourdough bread. I even had a full punch card, so the loaf would be free.

At Hy-Vee, the fresh loaves are displayed behind a six-foot high counter with a plexiglass window. Customers order their bread directly from the bakery staff. I got my bread and also grabbed a small round of brie that was part of a nearby cheese display. I then found a checkout line with only one woman in front of me. As I set my bread and cheese on the conveyor belt, the cashier asked the woman whether she should tell me to go away.

Neither the woman nor I knew what the cashier was talking about, but the woman said, “No, he seems nice.”

The cashier said, “Ok,” and she rang up my bread and cheese on the woman’s grocery bill.

I explained to the cashier that I was not with the other customer and that my groceries were not hers. The cashier looked confused, so the woman explained, “This guy is not my husband.”

The cashier then realized her mistake, but didn’t know how to take my groceries off of the woman’s tab. She had to call over her supervisor for help. Everything got straightened out, and the woman left with her bag of groceries. The cashier was about to check out my two items when she said, “You know, today is two for one on bread from the bakery.” I didn’t know, so I picked up my bread and cheese and returned to the bakery for a second loaf.

Back at the bakery, I had bread in one hand, cheese in the other. When I used my brie hand to point at the exact loaf I wanted, I bumped the cheese on the plexiglass and dropped it. Brie comes in circular containers, so when it hit the floor, the lid popped off and rolled under the counter. The baker on the other side couldn’t find it. After thirty seconds of unsuccessful searching, she got down on her hands and knees and found it leaning against one of the legs of the counter. All of this happened with three other people behind me waiting to order bread.

Now, armed with two loafs of bread, eight ounces of brie, and my punch card, I returned to the check out area. I intentionally did not get in the line of the cashier who goofed me up the first time. When the new cashier rang me up, he gave me one loaf free, but charged me for the second loaf. I told the him that I should get both loaves for free.

“No,” he said, “I gave you one free with your card, but you need to pay for the second loaf.”

I asked, “You mean I can’t use my punch card to get the buy one, get one free?”

“What?” he asked.

“If today is buy one, get one free, shouldn’t I get to use the punch card for the first loaf and get the second loaf for free? If I can’t use the punch card to do this, I’ll pay for one loaf today, get the second loaf for free, and save my punch card for later.”

“You are paying for only one loaf,” the cashier said.

“Yeah, but I am using my punch card. Can’t I pay for one loaf with money, get the second loaf free, and still keep my punch card?”

“No,” he said, “I need the punch card to give you the free loaf. Just a minute.” He then called over the supervisor, the same woman who’d helped with the previous snafu. She remembered me.

I again explained my rationale for getting both loaves for free, and the supervisor said, “The get-one-free is only if you have the coupon. Do you have the coupon?” 

I didn’t know about a coupon, and I didn’t want to say that the first cashier failed tell me that I needed one. That cashier was older than I am and probably needed the work to supplement her social security check. I wasn’t going to get her into any trouble over a loaf of bread. I paid for the bread and headed to the Olive Garden for the gnocchi soup. The soup there comes with bread.