15.
Panera Bread Mom
When you were younger and wilder at heart, you used to take it personally when people described Panera Bread as “you mean that hospital food lol,” so much so that you would defend the menu with its various Choose Twos and fresh but deliciously ingrediented salads. But eventually, on a long walk one day after a light snow that was softly melting into the grass, you realized that actually, it didn’t matter. None of the hospital food allusions affected your experience of the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad or a Cinnamon Crunch bagel.And upon having this epiphany, which coincidentally occurred at a time in your life when you didn’t believe God spoke to people audibly or even inaudibly, you felt an inaudible but loudly indelible sentiment in the core of your being.The sentiment itself was a holy mantra, one that you’ve never forgotten and probably never will: “Haters gonna hate, but baguettes will always plate” To you, in this Pauline moment of revelation and affirmation, you were confronted with the reality that not only did God exist, and not only was God involved in the daily details of our lives, but that this supreme entity of being, purpose, and love, also acknowledged the perfection of the Panera baguette. Which then made you chuckle to yourself after remembering Jesus’s transubstantiation because OF COURSE God loved baguettes, which, in turn, obviously confirmed that God loved Panera Bread.Which all this is just a very long and gentle way of telling you that you are a mom ripe for religious deconstruction. Like the religion of your youth, you only accept Panera Bread because it was marketed to you long ago as delicious and healthy when, really, it isn’t all that different from other fast-casual establishments, it stubbornly holds to its outdated menu offerings and refuses to take.Share your results on Instagram and Twitter with tag #PopcastMom