The Amazing Bread Maker Journey

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there lived two sisters.

One sister was good and kind and gracious – she taught first grade and was paid 3 pennies a year.

The other sister was good and mostly kind and sometimes gracious – she worked for a big corporation climbing the golden ladder of success, and was paid with more pennies than she knew what do.

Now these two sisters were very good friends. They liked to go on vacations, and watch movies, and eat at restaurants. And since the mostly kind sister had lots of pennies, but the gracious underpaid sister did not, they decided to put all their pennies in one big pile and share them with each other. And everyone was happy!

Several years passed, and after taking advantage of their parent’s hospitality longer than most people would think appropriate, they decided it was time for them to start out on a big adventure.

So they packed up their bags, loaded up their boxes, and bought a little house. It was a dusty and crowded little house, but it had lots of potential (according to their wise mother)!

Armed with paint brushes and cleaning supplies, the two sisters worked and worked and worked. They painted and cleaned and painted some more.

And when all that painting and cleaning was done, the dusty crowded little house was shiny and happy. Now the little house smiled.  And to celebrate the sisters decided to throw a party!

Friends from all over the land came together to say “congratulations!” and “you did a great job!”

Some people brought candles, and some people brought wine, and some people brought brownies!

But one person brought a contraption that the girls had never seen before. It was a big red box with the words “Bread Maker” on it. The sisters looked at it, and touched it, but didn’t know what to do with it. They had never heard of such a thing.

“Why would anyone need to make bread?!” they asked.

So they wrote a thank you note, cleared a space in the basement, placed the big red box on the shelf, and turned off the light.

And the Bread Maker sat in the basement of the happy house, never opened, never used.

Many years passed and the sisters forgot all about that unusual gift.

Now after a while, the sometimes-gracious sister met a very handsome prince. They fell in love, and after they got married they moved to a quiet, little farm settled in a pretty, green meadow.

More years passed, and the mostly-kind sister decided to leave the big corporate penny making machine and become a mommy. And that made her very happy! She had wanted to be a mommy for a very long time. But because she wasn’t going to have that extra pile of pennies, she was going to have to learn how to do a lot of new things.

She read, and she studied, and she practiced. She learned that she could keep her pennies at home by making things. And she was good at it!

And then one day, the good-but-underpaid sister and the mostly-kind-now-unemployed sister were talking on the phone.

And the mostly kind sister said:

“The one thing that would be really nice to have, but we totally can’t afford, so I’ve been checking out Craig’s List, and maybe for Christmas I could get one… is a bread maker.”

And the good sister said, “Well, what about the one in the basement?”

And they all lived happily ever after.