When I said “you did not see me, did you?” to the generously proportioned, middle-aged, head shaven bloke in the car park this morning, I fully expected verbal abuse or physical harm to dash my way. Some things in life are worth standing up for. This was not one of them.

The whole story started yesterday. Some days you get up and the first e-mail or telephone call brings unpleasant news, and you know that it will be one thing after another for the rest of the day. In the mail, a letter from Vodafone, thanking me enthusiastically for my business and informing me that I had signed up for a 47-month plan. I had agreed to 18 months. Later in the day, a delivery that I was expecting did not turn up and the courier’s website said “no one to receive, card left”. I had been in all day and there was no delivery and no card. Some days just keeping the basic functions of my life meandering along takes it out of me.

I should know that bad days are just a matter of perception, when negative events appear much bigger than the happy, positive things that stray into my life. This conversation on twitter, for example, with a fellow photographer from Yukon, Oklahoma.

Yukon, Oklahoma. Source: Google Earth

Yes, I too thought that Yukon was in Canada, populated only by gold diggers and grizzly bears, but there you go. Yukon, OK, looks like an atmospheric place, in a road movie kind of way, romantically placed along the famous Route 66. As far as I can make out, it is all there: They have a diner, a high school, a flour mill, an Italian restaurant, a pub (!) and a Czech festival. You know the song, “Get Your Kicks On Route 66″? I want to go there now.

Sorry, I digress. It’s not me, it’s my brain.

Jo Smith (@76scenic): My sinus cavities around my right eye hurt when I cough and are sore to touch. This is a first.

Me: You sound like my wife. She is a hypochondriac, too )

Jo Smith (@76scenic): ouch, am not :p but i am a celiac and have been sick for 3 wks now. I can’t take otc meds, so I power through.

Me: I was only joking. No offence intended.

Jo Smith (@76scenic): giggles, its all cool, im not offended. besides I was flattered to be compared to your wife in any light

Me: Intriguing – you don’t know her.

Jo Smith (@76scenic): exactly, you love her ….

I was going to ask “how do you know?” but this would have taken the magic out of Jo’s conclusion.

Jo Smith, we not only share a taste in architecture but your brain works in beautiful ways. (Unless you are Jo Smith, ignore the architecture remark.)

In our household, I gather the provisions. Part of my job is to take a bi-weekly trip to a local supermarket – the gender confused one. Not that I like the big supermarkets.

This morning, I arrived a few minutes before their opening time. I was driving gingerly down one of the lanes of the empty car park, when an older model, maroon coloured people carrier shot across my path diagonally from right to left and from behind me. I reacted with the speed of a cruise missile on duty and hit the brakes.

My tyres screeched at me disapprovingly. “Don’t abuse us. We are only doing our job and you are not helping.”

The coalition that is tyres, brakes and my right foot managed to stop us a split second before impact. The bloke in the other vehicle carried on. I pulled into a parking bay and stopped. He pulled into a bay just a little way from me. I glared at him through my side window. He glared at me through his side window. We glared at each other. I promise you, High Noon is nothing by comparison.

I sized him up: A good deal taller and easily twice my weight. His shaven head gave him a thuggish appearance.

My heart was pounding and I decided to sit for a few minutes in the car and wait for the adrenalin levels to subside to normal. He sat in the car, presumably waiting for his adrenaline levels to rise to attack mode. When I got out of the car, so did he. He was about halfway between me and the entrance to the supermarket. I could not possibly avoid him, so I decided to issue a challenge.

“You did not see me, did you?” I stated rather than asked as I looked up into his face, my eyes narrowed to slits as if I were gazing at a mountain. I was determined to take whatever was to come my way. His answer came as a complete surprise.

“No, I didn’t. I am sorry, I am really sorry. Totally my fault.”

See, that’s what I mean. We have to appreciate the little, unexpected, happy, positive events in life.

I noticed that he had the word “instructor” printed in red letters on his dark blue jumper and, him being my new good friend, I enquired about the nature of his instructing.

The words of his reply left his mouth only hesitantly. I could see each word clinging onto his lips with tiny arms, clinging on in the vain hope that they might be able to inch back into his mouth or, better still, his chest.

“I am a forklift driving instructor”, he uttered, and I could feel that his body clock had fast forwarded to retirement age that very moment.

—–

About fourteen months ago I wrote about Morrison’s dwarfish, gender confused Petit Parisienne.

Much to my satisfaction I have since noticed that Morrison’s have renamed their curiosity a French Stick. Okay, it should be a French style stick but so what?

Did somebody at Morrison’s read my blog and act? The least they could have done was to say “thank you, Mr. Kettler, for pointing this out, have a year’s worth of shopping on us”. You would think they appreciated a little help.

Now Morrison’s has done it again – make the impossible possible by creating a straight croissant. It is not just straight but with a belly or a hump, which would give it a hint of a crescent. No, it is just straight, much like their French Stick.

Croissants, much like Guglhupf, date back to the sieges of Vienna in 1529 and 1683 by the Ottoman empire. This historical aspect is important because of the shape of Croissants (and Guglhupf). I will burden you, dear Reader, with the details perhaps another time.

Croissant means crescent, as in the crescent moon. The name refers to the shape. If a Croissant is not (at least vaguely) crescent shaped, it is not a Croissant anymore. The straight crescent does not exist.

As for the culinary experience, unpleasant, really. Then again, what else can you expect for 28p? Why the call it a ‘M’Pick’N'Mix Roll at the newly installed self-service checkout is a mystery.

First the Petit Parisienne, now the straight Croissant. I fear that under the benign image of Morrison’s an habitual, serial offender lurks.

For reasons, which are inconsequential for this post, I found myself in a local branch of Morrison’s this morning. As I was passing the bread section, I saw it – a dwarfish baguette that Morrison’s call Petit Parisienne. Regular readers of my blog have spotted the problem immediately, I am sure.

Many languages (not English), assign a gender to nouns. Male and female, and in some languages neuter. A table in English, for instance, is a table. In German, der Tisch (masculine), in French la table (feminine) and in Italian la tavola (feminine). Sadly, I cannot go on because I do not speak any other languages well enough. Adjectives follow the noun where gender is concerned, as do articles.

Petit (small) goes with a masculine noun, whereas a feminine noun requires petite. A Parisian male is le parisien, whereas his female counterpart is la parisienne.

Hence, it should be either Petite Parisienne or Petit Parisien. Morrison’s Petit Parisienne is an impossibility.

Curiosity being one of the qualities, which I call my own, I telephoned Morrison’s to find out who was in charge of naming products. I spoke to customer services, reception, PR and internal communications but nobody could tell me. Everybody I spoke to was very friendly but also highly suspicious of me. It will probably forever be a secret who at Morrison’s creates product names.

As for taste, the little Parisian (see, in English it works) is edible, sort of, but not authentic.

French breakfast in my kitchen with Morrison's incorrectly named Petit Parisienne