NOTE: "... Who Packed My Dozen Bagels" is not a sexually euphemistic expression. I realize it looks and sounds that way, but the Noah's Bagels' worker literally put a dozen bagels into a bag for me. Look how nicely I'm avoiding controversy right up front.
To be a true reform, culturally Jewish youth, one must be able to distinguish between a good bagel and a bad bagel. There are many qualifications for this distinction:
1. Bagels must be chewy. A piece of sliced bread from a Sara Lee loaf is not chewy. Your bagel, therefore, should not be the texture of a piece of Sara Lee white bread.
2. Bagels must not crumble. OK, so I know this is a confusing concept as bread crumbles, cookies crumble, cakes crumble, and other grain-like products crumble, but after you eat a bagel, you should not leave behind a single crumb. See textural qualifications above to clarify this non-crumbling characteristic.
3. Bagels should NOT contain blueberries or chocolate chips. I'm sorry if you like sweet bagels, but we simply must agree to disagree. I realize that at many popular bagel chains, these types of bagels are sold to the goyim sweet-toothed masses, but bagels are meant as a savory carrier for a.) cream cheese, b.) lox, or c.) butter.
4. Bagels should not include any of the following: asiago cheese, jalapeno, "pizza" Enough said.
5. Bagels should not be less than 200 calories. If you're on a diet, fine, I'll understand if you eat paper-thin 100-calorie pieces of crumble-bread, but a real bagel is thick and carb-filled.
With these set of stringent guidelines, I can never bring myself to purchase bagels at any old grocery store. The only bagel place that truly succeeds in fulfilling all of these qualifications is Noah's Bagels. Ironically, Noah's "New York Style" Bagels are not actually sold in New York, but I don't really care about its East Coast authenticity. All I really care about is how they taste, how chewy they are, how thick they are, and how many no-frills bagels I can get my hands on.
Anyway, the problem with me and purchasing bagels is that I tend to feel a little bamboozled by the variety of bagel options, in spite of my strict rules and guidelines. This means that picking out a dozen for bagging takes longer than it should for the average bagel purchaser.
I could tell the bagel bagger was confused with me. A sudden desire to switch from a sesame seed to a whole wheat bagel got her flustered and she immediately apologized, muttering that it was her first day. Typically, this annoys me, but today I felt sympathetic and remembered my own first experiences working retail, trying to figure out where different clothes were supposed to be hung on different racks. So, I told her not to worry, that she would be fine. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and smiled and then said that she liked her job, really, but that she was just learning the ropes.
Her positivity was refreshing (in spite of dealing with a rather picky customer like me) and, heck, food service jobs really never are easy.
There was going to be a lot more written here, but the day passed by quickly.
As a small note, I also appreciate the couple at the restaurant I went to this evening that brought their own Ziploc tupperware containers to pack up their leftover food. Sure, it's a little kooky, but they're saving two stryofoam packages from hitting the landfills. So, thank you, geeky couple at the Mexican restaurant.
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