bagel etiquette
I'm at work and an announcement was made mere minutes ago that there were some excess bagels in the break room. I'm downstairs, the break room is upstairs, and I guar-an-tee you I was up there in 8 seconds flat. The selection was fair and I grabbed a plain bagel. Score!
Just then, a friend came along and proposed that we split that bagel. I like to think of myself as the generous sort, so I held the bagel up in the air and ripped it in half with my bare hands. Well, my friend gave me a look like I had just licked the bagel and then used it to dust behind the refrigerator with! He said the civilized thing to do would have been to cut the bagel in half the flat way (on its axis) with a knife. I must have missed that meeting. Where I'm from, if someone is willing to share something with you, I don't care what it is (gum, a snack, stolen loot), you take it. You look them in the eye and you say thank you.
Well, there was another plain bagel in the bag so he rebuffed my generous gesture and took a knife out of the drawer, sawed it (the bagel) in half and the crisis was averted. Who knows? He's probably right. Maybe I am the uncultured brute he thinks I am. I'm not ruling that possibility out, not by any means.
Speaking of bread, do you know what I like? I like good, rugged French bread. You know, those real hard rolls? The ones you have to tear apart with your hands. I get real territorial when I'm ripping one of those bad boys into pieces. In fact, if anyone gets too close to me when I'm doing that, I generally growl at them. I bare my teeth and snarl, just to let them know this is my frickin' hard roll, okay? You want one, reach across the table and grab one out of the basket yourself. It's important to have boundaries, I feel.
Speaking of France, here's a poem I wrote a real long time ago. It's called 'Je ne sais pas'
Je ne sais pas
I dreamt I was in France
last night,
but I didn't have
my passport,
so they made me wake up.
Just then, a friend came along and proposed that we split that bagel. I like to think of myself as the generous sort, so I held the bagel up in the air and ripped it in half with my bare hands. Well, my friend gave me a look like I had just licked the bagel and then used it to dust behind the refrigerator with! He said the civilized thing to do would have been to cut the bagel in half the flat way (on its axis) with a knife. I must have missed that meeting. Where I'm from, if someone is willing to share something with you, I don't care what it is (gum, a snack, stolen loot), you take it. You look them in the eye and you say thank you.
Well, there was another plain bagel in the bag so he rebuffed my generous gesture and took a knife out of the drawer, sawed it (the bagel) in half and the crisis was averted. Who knows? He's probably right. Maybe I am the uncultured brute he thinks I am. I'm not ruling that possibility out, not by any means.
Speaking of bread, do you know what I like? I like good, rugged French bread. You know, those real hard rolls? The ones you have to tear apart with your hands. I get real territorial when I'm ripping one of those bad boys into pieces. In fact, if anyone gets too close to me when I'm doing that, I generally growl at them. I bare my teeth and snarl, just to let them know this is my frickin' hard roll, okay? You want one, reach across the table and grab one out of the basket yourself. It's important to have boundaries, I feel.
Speaking of France, here's a poem I wrote a real long time ago. It's called 'Je ne sais pas'
Je ne sais pas
I dreamt I was in France
last night,
but I didn't have
my passport,
so they made me wake up.
posted by Citizen at 9:30 AM
3 Comments:
Yeah - what's up with all of those "don't touch my food" people? They'll shake your hand - they'll borrow a pen - they'll use your phone - but they don't want food you've just touched.
Greeting an act of generosity and hospitality with a sneer of disgust...do they even have a clue? They'd last about five minutes in the desert - "sorry, I could never eat that couscous you've just served me with your hand. I'd rather go lie in the sand and have my eyes pecked out by vultures."
It was kind of funny, Rand. He's a good guy, I think he was just really shocked that I didn't know about proper bagel etiquette.
I missed a lot of meetings when I was younger. It would seem.
Thank you! You've made my morning -so funny.
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