An Open Letter To The Person Who Runs The Bagel Cutting Machine At The Bagel Factory
You had one job.
Dear Person Who Runs The Bagel Cutting Machine At The Bagel Factory:
I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but I've been looking forward to this bagel since 10:00 p.m. last night. You can only imagine the superhuman effort I dredged up from the depths of my very being to not just go ahead and eat it last night.
But that would’ve screwed up my intermittent fasting schedule which is 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. every other day and 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. on weekends unless it’s a leap year.
It’s not even a good bagel. It’s from Aldi’s, so it’s kind of gummy and has a slightly metallic flavor. I think it has blueberries, or at least it has blue spots all over it.
No matter. I planned on toasting this baby up and slathering it with my condiment of choice —or maybe even a fried egg! Sometimes I’m fancy that way.
All I needed was a bagel, of whatever dubious provenance, sliced in two basically similar halves. I’m really not picky. You could put cream cheese on a truck tire and I would eat it.
But no.
What we have here is an abomination. The bagel guillotine or however it is you slice bagels at the bagel factory — I really like the idea of a little guillotine — didn’t go all the way through the bagel. So when I tried to separate the halves, it ripped.
Now, I can’t be expected to calmly retrieve a knife from the drawer and finish your job for you. That’s not how it works. When confronted with something as irritating as an incompletely sliced bagel, of course there’s going to be violence.
Call it bagel rage.
When the dust cleared, I was left with one bagel half that was sort of a bread puzzle, and one half that had a hinge sticking off it that you KNOW is going to burn in the toaster and set the smoke alarm off.
What do I do with the puzzle pieces? I can’t toast them. You can’t toast wadded-up blobs of bread. Next thing you know you’re fishing around in the toaster with a butter knife and then getting accusatory looks from the paramedics (again).
I had to eat plain, raw bagel pieces like a barbarian while the other half set off a small conflagration in my toaster.
I understand that maybe your job is boring, or there were technical difficulties with the bagel guillotine. But I expect at least some quality control when it comes to my discounted bread goods that I purchased from a cut-rate wholesaler for half the price that I would pay for a similar but much better-tasting product at a real store.
Accordingly, please find attached hereto a bill for my dog’s therapy after she was subjected to the smoke alarm (again), and for my temporary loss of hearing.
Also, it can’t be good for the toaster, so I threw in the price for a new one as well. A four-slotter this time—I’m not screwing around.
Toastily yours,
Bev
1. F - Bagels: You are also buying (number of holes X number of bagels) helping with math here.
2. Use great english muffins: I've got a great hand me down bread knife and the brand I like, no, love, does not come pre-sliced.
3. Get a decent toaster-oven that's easy to clean.
4. Done.
Bagels have one job: be reliable. They often fail at this, because all sorts of chain bagelrey establishments have come on the scene, mocking what used to be great. Soon AI will be producing bagel poetry anyway.