Words and Thoughts: Chicago, Home of The Sheboygan Bread Child
Hello again, alleged readers! Everyone always says, “Stav, you’re so mysterious,” “Stav, what do you do with your time?”, “Stav, I have no idea how you support whatever it is that you describe as your lifestyle.” As you all know, I currently have a job. And like most, I spend what I imagine to be several hours a week doing that job. What many of you may not know is that before my current job, I had a different job! I know it’s difficult to imagine ol’ Stav doing something different than what Stav does now, but you simply must overcome that difficulty and imagine it!
Back in “the before times”, when spirits were high and limits were low, I found myself working as an investigative reporter in Wisconsin. I was in Wisconsin because I thought it was Minnesota, and I thought Minnesota was where Chicago is.
My first scoop was, in my opinion, Pulitzer caliber: A tell-all piece on “The Bread Child of Sheboygan”. As I was walking out of an alley behind a Culver’s Restaurant one morning, I saw a woman and a man loading groceries into their car. To the untrained eye, there was nothing out of the ordinary. But at least one of my eyes was trained. Maybe both. Using my skills as a professional investigative reporter, I noticed a rather large baguette among their groceries. It didn’t fit in any of the grocery bags they were carrying. When they loaded the groceries in the back of their car, they placed this ever more suspiciously large baguette not just in the back seat, but into a child’s carseat in the back seat! This baguette was no ordinary baguette. It was their child. Their child made of bread!
“The Bread Child of Sheboygan,” as it would come to be known.
I followed them to their home, where I watched them bring The Bread Child, and their groceries, inside. For the next two days, I staked out the residence, hiding in conveniently placed trash cans. The man, the woman, and a human toddler all came and went; but I never saw The Bread Child with them after my initial sighting. After two days of dutifully observing from the trash cans, I decided it was time to approach the subjects of my investigative reporting directly.
On the morning of the third day, as the male adult, presumably The Bread Child’s father, exited the residence with the human toddler, and headed to their car, I climbed out of the trash can and said, “Excuse me! I’m Stav Knudsenen, investigative reporter. The world wants to know where your Bread Child is!”
The father was evasive. “Ohp, gotta say I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about there, sir.”
“Oh, I think you might!” I persisted. “Who’s that carseat for then, huh?” pointing to the child’s carseat in the back of their Mercury.
The man had obviously practiced for this exact scenario. “Oh, well, that’s for little Steven here!” he replied with zero hesitation whatsoever.
It was obvious that Steven was in on the whole bit. These were deep cover operatives of some sort. Or, possibly just very embarrassed that they had a child made of bread. Either way, whether they were spies, or just showing inexcusable favoritism towards Steven, they weren’t people I wanted to spend more time with.
By that time, I could recognize that I was too far down the rabbit-hole for my own good. I anonymously mailed all of the investigative research I had complied to the Sheboygan Press newspaper: A hand drawn sketch of the house, annotated with “The Bread Child lives here”. I figured it was more than enough to get them started so that they could continue the investigation.
After that, I set off to find the real Minnesota. But my adventures there, particularly the time spent at The Gateway Arch, are stories for another time!
