Day 86: Bagels

It's amazing how quickly ravenous hordes can dispatch three dozen bagels.

Drove up to Cambridge from Long Island this morning, stopping at the Hicksville train station to pick up Rebecca. Before I get to the bagel story, let it be known that during our bathroom break, at a rest stop on I-84 in Connecticut, Rebecca attempted to negotiate the vending machine, depositing money for a small packet of Smartfood popcorn. (Remember when that stuff was popular?) The Smartfood packet fell from its rack but got wedged in the machine prior to arriving at the dispensing slot. Great. So Rebecca figured she'd put in some more money, get some Swedish Fish, and the Swedish Fish, on their way down to the dispensing slot, would knock the Smartfood packet free. OK. She put in the money... and of course the machine whirred and the Swedish Fish moved forward, toward the slot... but it didn't fall. Oops. Again. Some brisk smacking of the machine dislodged the Fish, but the falling Fish didn't dislodge the Smartfood, and we were back at square one. Dilemma. Needless to say, by this time a crowd of boisterous, well-meaning middle-aged women had gathered, and once the Fish failed, one of them elbowed their way forward, briskly deposited some money, and sent a king-size Snickers bar on a bombs-away mission -- the Snick snack had no trouble knocking down the Smartfood, solving everyone's problems. Rebecca then turned to me and said, "This kind of thing always happens to me."

Back to the bagels. On those rare occasions when I drive up to Cambridge straight from the bagel store on a weekday, I feel it necessary to allow my Volpe brethren and sistren to partake of Bagel Boss's finest. So I sent an e-mail with the subject line "Society of Toroidal Carbohydrate Consumption," and the Volpe vultures swarmed as soon as I arrived. More than one actually had the effrontery to ask about cream cheese. My fault: I've spoiled them in the past. But bringing in bagels is always fun, even on my purported day off. (No such thing anymore, with the BlackBerry.)

No running today, by the way. But every day is something. As Jimmy Breslin says, "There are eight million stories in New York... this was one of them!"