I’m sure there is a genetic mutation in my family, but my mother didn’t have me tested. It affects only women, so in my family, it is a mutation on the X Chromosome. There may be those with a Y Chromosome (men) who suffer from this condition, but not in my family. What is it? I come from a long line of women who mutilate bread. We do not slice bread from a whole loaf; we attack it. In wondering how strong my case was, I asked my adult daughter about her ability to slice bread, and her answer confirmed my hypothesis. It’s genetic. She mutilates bread, too, and her mother didn’t have her tested either.

My mother and grandmother suffered from the same genetic mutation. After my mom fought with a loaf of bread, and the “slices” were wedges, she would laugh and say, “That’s how my mother cut bread.” I still remember my father’s look of disgust when he came upon the injured loaf. First, he had to straighten it. It was probably best that he did the straightening because my childhood bangs were a testament to my mother’s ability to “straighten” a cut. Not being a bread baker, she only occasionally purchased an uncut loaf. So, it wasn’t often we enjoyed the ensuing entertainment or frustration, depending on your perspective.

However, I do bake bread regularly. That might lead you to assume that I have perfected my bread-cutting skills. You would be wrong. Yes, I have had a lot of practice, but in my experience, that does not make perfect. We like crusty bread, which makes the challenge even greater, so when I slice a loaf, the result sometimes looks like the bread was in a knife fight, with no one winning. It was purely a fight to the death. There isn’t usually blood, but I can’t say it hasn’t happened. The remainder of the loaf occasionally looks as if it were caught in the wild by someone whose only implement for cutting it was a Swiss Army knife.

So, although my mother didn’t have me tested, I’m sure that bread mutilation is a condition that has passed genetically from generation to generation in our family. We have two granddaughters, both the progeny of our daughter and her husband. I can hardly wait to see what genes come to the fore when they are adults. So far, their mother hasn’t had them tested either.

P.S. I can hardly wait for the outrage to begin from my female maternal extended family members who can cut bread straight. That is, if such relatives exist.

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