Those of you who live in Chestertown know how Doug the Baker rolls. You know that he (and Pastry Chef Michael) offer baked goods of such high quality and exquisite taste as to crush the collective will power of this once sturdy-minded town. The lure is such that we simply cannot resist.

I have spent long nights wondering how they do it, Doug and Michael, how they make such delectable breads, such sumptuous blueberry muffins, such sinfully rich and gooey stun buns? Well friends, I finally know the truth, and it isn’t pretty.

Let me set the scene: last night, we were at the Acme, Robbi and I, with kids in tow. We were having wholesome family shopping time when suddenly, we turned up the bread aisle and saw a shocking sight: Doug the Baker in what can only be described as rapturous embrace of a loaf of mass-produced white bread.

Of course we were stunned and shamed. We tried to avert our eyes, but such was the horror that we could not look away. What we learned next was even worse. Caught in the act, Doug the Baker broke down in tears and bared the honest truth. The bread he serves in the bakery is actually Acme brand Italian bread with the wrapper removed! He doesn’t even know how to bake! .

Badly shaken, but trying to regain some sort of foothold in a suddenly inverted universe, we turned into the cake aisle and had another shock. Michael the pastry chef stood there admiring the boxed muffin mix.

We begged Michael to tell us that our eyes were deceiving us, that the muffins we loved so dearly were not, in fact, a Betty Crocker product but instead made by hand with his loving artisinal expertise. Michael gave us a look of withering pity, tossed the muffin mix into his cart, and moved on to the next shelf, where he broke our heart yet again.

We didn’t even have to ask. Deep down, we suddenly understood that the majestic powers behind the stun bun derive from Pillsbury Easy Frost and not, as we formerly suspected, from the petals of a rare flower harvested by Doug the Baker himself, from a desolate mountaintop in Nepal.

Armed with this devastating knowledge, we had no recourse but to threaten Doug the Baker with a thorough exposé of his dissembling ways. He begged us to keep his secret, promising anything we wanted if only we’d swallow the grisly truth.

We thought about it for a moment and decided that there was one thing Doug the Baker could do to keep us quiet.

For the next twenty minutes, we completed our shopping in quiet serenity while Doug the Baker tended to the children in the dairy aisle.

In spite of our promise to keep quiet, we felt compelled to bring the truth to you today, if only to propose that we citizens of Chestertown might all come together and try to persuade Doug and Michael to cast aside the easy temptation of processed foodstuffs and actually learn to bake.

Are you with me, people?