The death of the bread fairy...

Call the police! I think my wife may have killed the bread fairy, let me explain.

A strange and almost unprecedented event took place this morning; we almost ran out of bread. In fact we came so close to running out that when I opened the plastic wrapper I found only three slices and two of those were crusts, which, in our house for some reason I really can’t fathom, are deemed inedible. Yes, I’m sure that you can imagine my shock, no bread – had the bread fairy died?

Up until this morning the bread fairy had been entirely reliable, often (usually now that I come to think about it) filling the bread cupboard with so many loaves that it was often a litter of half eaten, opened packages of all colours and sizes; some of which had decided to start to return to source and very gently had begun to mould in that fluffy green way that bread tends to. I wondered what could have possibly gone wrong as I toasted, not with wine but in a toaster, the remaining slice of acceptable bread and one of the two usually discarded crusts. The cupboard was bare. How could that be? Had we forgotten to make a wish or something?

As I pondered the fact that either a slice bread is bigger than it used to be or that the toaster had shrunk, I mentioned our lack of bread to my wife. She was, as usual, running late and rushing around trying to do a dozen things at once before setting off to work. She really should take it a little easier you know and not get so wound up, because when I mentioned our lack of bread she almost bit my head off claiming that nobody had told her that we were nearly out. I looked at her puzzled, dumbfounded and relieved that I hadn’t been fool enough to mention that the toaster had shrunk or (God forbid!) that the bread was too big.

What difference would telling her have made I wondered? After all, it was the bread fairy that was at fault… and then a thought crossed my mind. Had my wife done something to upset the bread fairy? Had they maybe had an argument and in a fit of pique my wife had told her to get out and never return… or maybe even worse?

Surreptitiously I scanned the room for evidence of trouble, a broken wing or perhaps a discarded fairy bell. But I couldn’t see anything and so returned to buttering my toast whistling nervously as I did so. Well, I might be in the presence of a fairy killer for all I knew. Fortunately my wife left soon after, leaving me in peace to eat my toast and mourn the passing of the bread fairy.

Oh well, at least the shirt and toilet-roll fairies are still around. Thank heavens for small mercies.