Bagel Day

I was hungry and there was some strange kink in my stomach that hurt. All I wanted at that moment was to eat a fresh bagel with a little butter and wash it down with stomach-friendly Sprite. Cranky, I threw my school bag haphazardly under my desk where I maintain residency as Office Wench for some Jews. Mammoth books that compete with Middlemarch in size tumbled out of the stuffed bag, landing askew amongst twisted staples and microscopic paperclips. I ran into the kitchen- the kosher kitchen- and saw a paper Noah’s Bagels bag that tantalized me with the promised fulfillment of my desires. At that moment, I wanted a bagel, I craved a bagel, I needed a bagel. I wasn’t going to be choosy. Bring on the overpowering “everything” bagels, I cried to the Bagel Gods. Bring on the mutant salt bagels, I roared to the Bagel Gods. Hell, give me your deformed cock-sized bread loaves stuffed with every nut and fruit in existence. I don’t give a damn, but give me something to eat, I screamed, shaking a fist.

I dashed eagerly to the bag, peered over the fine-toothed edge and examined the two and a half bagels that had survived a prior onslaught of hungry students. They were… my god… they were good bagels. Good, fresh bagels that weren’t dry and hard or loaded with strange toppings. I plucked one up, salivating with eagerness. I then laid it on a paper plate. Pulling open the knife drawer, I gasped in horror at it�s emptiness. All carving knives, all butcher knives, all serrated tomato knives- all the random mismatched knives we used to prepare Friday night dinners were gone. How could this happen? Why would they vanish without a trace when we, the workers of the Jewish Center, still need them to cut our bagels? I looked around in a panic, realizing during my quick survey of the kitchen that there were boxes packed with random kitchen supplies- no doubt ready to be moved from our temporary facility and into our new facility. If I couldn’t use a real knife, I reasoned, I could certainly use a fake knife, and we had plenty of those. The next two minutes found me desperately hacking at my fresh, flexible bagel with a plastic knife, crumbs and chunks of bread sprinkling the counter. But it didn’t matter, because it was Wednesday.

Wednesday is Bagel Day for the students affiliated with my work. Every Wednesday, there might be bagels leftover that I can eat. Some days, there aren’t. Other days, they are donated from Noah’s Bagels and stale. But today, there was one fresh bagel waiting for me and my pained stomach. Satisfied with my prize, I crammed the uneven slices of bagel into the kosher Jewish Center toaster and leaned back against a wall to watch coils redden with heat. Now, all I needed to do was scavenge for some Sprite.