Tale Of A Croissant

Every weekend, I descend to the ground floor, drawn to a quaint bakery named ‘BakeHouse’. There, I claim my spot at a communal table near the kitchen, where I can watch the pastry chef roll what are undoubtedly the flakiest croissants. The ambient hustle and bustle of people going about their lives provides the perfect backdrop of white noise for focus. I often share my table with an older gentleman, engrossed in his thoughts and penning them into a brown leather-bound notebook with a fountain pen. One of these days, I’ll muster the courage to ask, "Excuse me, sir, may I know what you are working on?” But that tale awaits another day.

On this particular day, I opened Misbehaving by Richard Thaler to page 98 and started reading. An hour or so later, the oven door opened, and within seconds, the aroma of freshly baked croissants hit me. My immediate thought: "Damn! They should bottle this scent; it's better than Chanel No 5."

With my senses captivated by the croissants, I followed their journey from the kitchen to the counter. A mom picked one up for her toddler and handed it to him, proceeding to pay. Unbeknownst to her, the kid immediately dropped the croissant, likely because it was a bit too hot for him.

There, on the floor, lay the croissant, equidistant from the hungry kid and a fluffy corgi that had just walked in. I saw their eyes lock, shifting from the croissant to each other. After the briefest of pauses, they leaped! Thankfully for the kid, the corgi was on a leash, which was just short enough to prevent it from reaching the croissant.

In his pursuit, the kid absolutely pummelled the croissant! Flakes flew everywhere. But with both hands on the prize, he stuffed the buttery and no longer flaky croissant into his face. As he devoured the pastry, he kept one eye on the corgi, who was busy picking up all the flakes that flew his way and couldn’t be bothered less about what the kid was doing.

I looked up and caught the eye of one of the bakers behind the counter who was wearing, and I am not making this up, a t-shirt that reads ‘Nutella Addict’. We both smiled, barely managing to suppress our laughter. This whole thing transpired in about 60 seconds!

Battling a touch of OCD, I found myself envying the child's carefreeness—a trait I seem to have misplaced along the way. He embraced the joy of the moment, unbothered by the croissant's brief encounter with the floor. While I've retained the silliness of youth, its unrestrained freedom remains tantalisingly out of reach.

I moved the bookmark to page 136, put down my book, pulled out my laptop, and wrote this down.