I stopped in a Bagel Joint for lunch the other day, it was a bit late and they appeared like they may have been preparing to close. I politely asked ‘yaopenstill?’ (it’s all one word, cause that’s pretty much how I said it) the counter gal who was busily jamming dozens of bagels into a clear plastic bag, confirmed that they where still open but that they didn’t have many bagels left. I asked what kind of bagels they had left, she told me that my bagel options consisted of ‘cranberry orange’ and ‘cinnamon raisin’… Now mind you that although my mother is cuban, I’m 100% Jewish, to me neither of these options qualify to be called bagels, at best ‘cranberry orange’ and ‘cinnamon raisin’ bagels are hi-carb candy, or at the very least they’re poorly shaped muffins, either way, they both suck for lunch. While grasping for a comment, my eyes once again fell on the now full bag of bagels on the counter. “What’s the deal with these bagels?” I asked punctuating it with a poke of the finger in the bags direction [long pause on her part]
“Those are the bagels we didn’t sell today, employees are allowed to take the ones that are unsold at closing” [longer pause from me]
“So do you think there might be a rye bagel in there?” I asked[punctuating the question with a eye sparkle and my best 5 dollar smile…my pleasantries bounced off her like bullets off superman]“Sir…I really need to finish closing up..”
Yes..I understand, I just want a toasted rye bagel, cream cheese, a slice of onion, and two slices of tomato, and if you wouldn’t mind putting cream cheese on both sides of the bagel, I’d appreciate it… oh and a large Diet Pepsi, very little ice” … [pregnant pause]
Now the pause felt like 15 minutes, but it was probably more like 20 seconds, 20 seconds of absolute silence except for the poor bastard sweeping up in the back. “Sir, as I said before we have ‘cranberry orange’ and ‘cinnamon raisin’ bagels left, and no more sliced onions or sliced tomatoes. and then she made an ‘annoyed’ noise that I guess was supposed to motivate me to either leave the shop of settle for the candy bagels. Unfortunately for her I’m not wired that way, to me the annoyed sound was an open invitation to fuck with her. what follow is a verbatim account of our exchange. [I think you’ll be able to tell who is who..or is it whom?]
“So your telling me I can’t have a bagel out of your bag?”
“Pretty Much..yes, I already told my boyfriend I was bringing them home”
“Is that gentleman sweeping in the back, the Manager?”
“What kind of Bagel did you want again?”
“Rye, toasted, cream cheese both sides, tomato, onion, large Diet Coke, little bit of ice…”
“we don’t have any sliced tomato, or sliced onion…SIR”
“you don’t have ANY tomato”
“not sliced…”
“but you have tomato?”
“yes in the walk-in”
“and you have knives?”
“of course we have knives”
“but you don’t have any sliced tomatoes?”
“no..no sliced tomatoes”
“are there also onions in the walk-in?”
it was at this moment that my cell phone rang, and as usual I was forced to step outside to get better reception, and just as I did, She locked me out. I guess she won the battle, but the war is just beginning.. oh by the way the call was an invitation to lunch.
As to not slander an entire establishment for what I’m sure is an isolated incident, I’ll refrain from naming the actual Bagel shop, but just for historical accuracy it’s a National Chain named after a large NYC Burrough