Bread and No Roses

Someone keeps leaving a loaf of bread at my front door.

The first time it happened, a couple years ago, I thought for sure my marginally retarded next-door-neighbor dropped it. I put it in front of her door. But like all the pretty little flowers she allows to die and dry out, it sat there for a few days before I exasperatedly shit-canned it. (The pretty little flowers, and once a tomato plant, sit there for weeks and then months before I make them disappear. Oh, we share a landing; otherwise I would not care what dead thing she was not tending on her doorstep.)

So 3 months ago, someone did it again. I had all but forgotten the first incident. More puzzling was the fact that it appeared in the 10 minutes I was out with the dog. Then a few weeks later, again with the bread! And today, sometime between my lunch home visit and after work, another loaf. My neighbor never gets any; only me, and the two condos under me. There is no common denominator between us. None of us appear to be underfed. The bread is never the same- sometimes white (bleh), sometimes wheat, sometimes sourdough, always cheap and near last-sale-date. I always throw it away and so do my neighbors.

No one seems to know what it means. I figured it for some kind of ethnic blessing... or curse. But I can't find the answer. I like to think it means that someone sees me living my life, caring for my sick dog, minding my own business, and lays the bread at my doorstep as some sort of respectful symbolic offering. But if it really means that someone is cursing me with the fleas of a thousand camels, I'm gonna be really pissed.