I was happily gnawing on a piece of toast the other morning when my eye fell upon the tail-end of the plastic bag that the bread had arrived in.
“baked in goodness” it said.
My knowledge of New Zealand geography is good but not encyclopaedic. “Where in New Zealand is Goodness?” I wondered.
Well, I know of Gisborne, Geraldine, Greytown, Gore, Greymouth, Gibbston Valley, Gladstone … but haven’t a clue where Goodness is.
I resisted the urge to rifle through the bookshelf for an atlas, and briefly considered ringing Quality Bakers and asking where my loaf of Nature’s Fresh toast bread had been baked. But, even if I managed to get through to the chief baker, I could imagine the conversation.
“Oh, you silly, silly customer. There is no place called Goodness! It’s the name I gave to my oven.” I imagined him whipping off his bouffant chef’s hat and wiping his ruddy face with it. “Every morning I come to work and turn on the lights and say ‘Good morning, Goodness’ today we are going to make extra good bread.” He pauses to lovingly caress her glowing stainless steel control panel before bustling off to start shovelling flour into a hopper.
But you have probably already detected my mistook. Goodness was written with a little “g” not a capital. But then, you never know these days. It’s super-trendy to eschew capital letters probably in the faint hope that txtrs will be able to read the script. Or maybe it saves on ink with lower case letters being smaller than capitals. Well, I can’t think of any other reason for this disturbing trend.
So, my mind returned to Moovin, the production line robot who plonks the caps and seals on milk bottles for Anchor in an environment of freshness. Perhaps the bakery is suffused in goodness. The bakers wander around in crisp white kit, golden halos upon their heads with glistening white smiles that go “ting” every time you look at them. Little hearts ooze out of every clean and good surface to cluster and drift about the room before disappearing with a gently scented “pop!”
Steady on, old boy. Just what was in that dish of tea you’ve been sipping?
The goodness is supposedly baked-in. The bag should show “baked-in goodness.”
Sigh. Another dream disappears in a world of reality.
Well written 🙂