Hey-Zeus, Geez-us and the 40 Loaves.

As promised at the end of my previous article, the following is how my wife and I finally succumbed to the power of the olfactory sense.

The title of this epic tale refers to the 2 phonetic versions of the name, Jesus. Of course, there’s only one Divine Jesus, pronounced Geez-us but, google tells me that, currently, there are over 250,000 of the other mortal Jesus’, pronounced, Hey-Zeus. This is a true story of how I inadvertently discovered the value in thoroughly proofreading your email.

In 2002, I resigned from my Corporate job to buy a small business, a Great Harvest Bread Store, in North Carolina. The conversion went well right up to the first day that my wife and I became the owners/operators.

At 5:05 A.M. on that momentous day the phone on the table next to my side of the bed rings. It’s Mark, the previous owner, who was invaluable in our efforts to learn the bakery business. “Bob, are you coming in?, he asked. I had failed to set the alarm resulting in my new career being delayed by about 1 hour. Everything else from that moment on went downhill. But, somehow we stumbled and fumbled our way through the first 18 months.

In January of 2004, another rookie baker was opening a Great Harvest store located far enough away from ours so as not to compete with us. The guys name was Jesus (pronounced Hey, Zeus), one of the 250,000 mortal Hey, Zeus’ He and I began a cordial relationship. To assist with his grand opening, I decided to send him 40 round loaves of whole wheat bread to be used for sampling by his customers.

Here’s how I came up with the number 40.

Ingredient and labor costs then for a loaf of whole wheat bread was about $2.50, times 40 =’s a gift of about $100.00.

Stay with me now. Here comes the “kicker”.

“According to the google machine, the words 40 days and 40 nights are found in the Bible about 24 times. Each time, they “denote a significance for God and his people.”

My normal work day back then was 14 hours, ending about 9 PM with an email to the employee who would start the bread making process at 5 AM the next morning.

I was always very careful about proofreading that late evening e-mail so as to avoid prevent a 5 AM phone call.

When I pulled this email back up I saw the title as a reader would;

“40 Loaves for Jesus”

the words 40 days and 40 nights are found 24 times. Each time, they denote a significance for God and his people.

My wife and I owned a business from 2002 to 2007.