Maisy Made Croutons

MAISY MADE CROUTONS
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

Maisy made croutons that could break your teeth. Her secret was to start with a nice, dense, unleavened bread, before toasting every last vestige of moisture from it. The dough may have had a little secret ingredient in it, too, bought in bulk at The Home Depot, but she liked a little crunch.

Maisy's salad brought turmoil to the congregation of the Southern Cross Baptist Church during their annual Memorial Day picnic. Twenty injuries and on a holiday. Tell me, where are going to find a dentist on a holiday? Those that ate around the croutons found her salad delightful.

Government men came to the door the next day and Maisy was afraid they were going to take her away. Instead they wanted to buy her recipe. It seems her croutons had what they called, "Defense Department Applications" or some such thing. It wasn't a lot of money they offered, but since they considered taking her away anyhow if she wasn't interested, it sounded quite generous. The money might have been enough to get Reynolds' old Dart out of the garage, too, so she took it.

After Congress okayed the funds, The Salads Against Terror program was implemented. Croutonic casualties amongst foreign brown people, combatants as well as civilians, at first threatened to swell the ranks of the enemy, but it turned out the extra roughage in their diets calmed everyone down a bit. In fact, once everyone learned to eat around the croutons, things were slightly better. You can't really argue with a good B.M. Maisy's illegitimate step-nephew, Conner, was a permanent Reservist and described, in numerous letters, the salad-induced decrease in attacks.

Maisy took credit for the whole thing.