Always, always, with the bread.

I love bread. Always have. As a little kid, I would sneak slices of cheap white bread from the bag, roll it between my palms like play-doh, and pop the newly-formed bread balls into my mouth. As a teenager, I could be found on many a summer night rolling up to the WINCO checkout stand at 1 AM, my only purchases a Green Squall-flavored Powerade and a loaf of French bread. And now, in this wonderful, artisan bakery-filled land, hardly a day goes by without me leaving a boulangerie, demi-baguette tradi or brioche au chocolat in greedy hand.

Recently, I realized that my love of bread extends beyond a mere appreciation and into a full-blown fixation, as evidenced by the fact that it is, apparently, on my mind even when it's nowhere in sight. These stories illustrate just what I'm talking about.

As a high school freshman in Monsieur Raney's French class, we were taught our articles of clothing. A skirt is une jupe, a blouse is un chemisier, etc. Pretty straightforward stuff. And I felt pretty confident with the material when it came time for our in-class review before the chapter test. As was custom, Raney danced around the room, pointing at the things he wanted us to name, while we shouted "un chapeau! les bottes, les bottes!" He then came to me.

"Haley, qu'est-ce-qu'on porte à la piscine?" (What do you wear to the swimming pool?)
"Un maillot de pain," I reported proudly.
"Un maillot de quoi???"
"Un maillot de.....pain?" I repeated, losing confidence.

At this point Monsieur Raney descended into a case of adult giggles that lasted for a full two minutes.

"Maillot (gasp) de bain. Bain." He said, still trying to catch his breath. "Un maillot de bain is a swimming suit," he explained. "Un maillot de pain would be a suit of bread."

Once I realized my mistake, I was right there with M. Raney on this one. Something about the visual of some guy showing up to the pool with a bread Speedo, ready for a long day o' swimming, is just so darn funny.

And then, a few days ago, craving some good old-fashioned English, I bought a book of British poetry, "From Spenser to Arnold," and took it with me on our bus tour of the Loire Valley. There I was, lovin' on Coleridge, when I came across a phrase that I just couldn't decipher.

Languished in bread? I know it's been a while since I was in a lit class, but I just don't get where he's going with this image... He's...suffering in the stifling bread-and-water-alone conditions of lower-class life?

I had to stare at it for another few seconds before I realized that what it actually said was "languished in pain." You know, pain. That English word denoting discomfort or injury. The sad thing is that, if I hadn't figured out that my confusion was French-induced, I, in true English-major form, would have eventually forced some significance into the phrase "languished in bread."