big fat zero

I was just about to walk into Ballston Mall on my way home yesterday when a guy riding a unicycle on sidewalk shot (?) by me. Everyone surely remembers my insightful entry on unicycles earlier this year. Remember? Here it is. I hadn’t seen a unicycle, beyond an occasional circus visit, in the twenty years prior to that guy carrying one on the bus. Now I’ve seen two in less than a year? The world is going to hell. This guy, though clearly an ‘independent soul’, was fully kitted-out with helmet and knee/shin pads – safety first I often say, and for that he gets the benefit of the doubt.

I stopped by the Deli across from my office this morning to get an egg-and-cheese bagel, since we’ve no eggs or bagels at home, and the customer in front of me was wrapping up his order for a dozen bagels. I’m going to assume this purchase was intended for either his officemates or some visitors that were arriving for a cubicle tour or PowerPoint presentation carnival. He ended up with some poppy seed bagels, a few with everything, some onion bagels, etc. The ordered bagels were bagged up when the woman at the counter comes at him with a real mystery of a question…and this conversation follows:

Bagel Bagger: “Do you need cream cheese?”
Silly Man: “Do you have flavored?”
Bagel Bagger: “We have plain and vegetable. We also have lox.”
Silly Man: “Umm. Well. Hmm. No thanks.”

What? I know that his hemming and hawing wasn’t because he was wondering whether or not there was some ratty old cream cheese left in the common ‘fridge at work. I think he was actually debating if bagels require cream cheese. He’s an idiot. Picture this encounter back at the Data Intronix, Inc. conference room.

Co-worker #1: “Hey bagels. Awesome dude…up top! [hands slap over the conference table] I didn’t get breakfast this morning. I’m effing hungry”
Idiot Man: “Yeah, grabbed ‘em at Chutzpah deli on the way in bro’.”
Co-worker #2: “Nice. Where’s the cream cheese?”
Idiot Man: “Didn’t get any. Who needs cream cheese for bagels? I thought we could just try to gag down some dry and crusty bread hunks. Man up dude! Up top! [nothing]
Co-worker #1: “Simon! You are such an idiot.”

I can guarantee you that if you ever come over to the house for bagels there’ll be complimentary cream cheese. This falls under the similar belief that if I’m making you shrimp risotto there will be tons and tons of monstrous shrimp overflowing from your entrée. You won’t spend time digging around trying to find little shreds of cheap, frozen shrimp. If you go to Simon’s house you’ll no doubt find a splash of shrimp juice on top of some Uncle Ben’s three-minute rice.

Sorry Simon.

It’s Friday.

T.