Bagelicious: Delicious Bagels Around the Corner

Barely outside of Bagelicious bagel shop and all you can hear is the crinkling of a brown paper bag, my hands reaching deep inside for the recently purchased bagel.

Not even at my car and I'm pulling out the loosely wrapped bagel, peeling away around the edges.

Cars honk and swerve as I stand in the middle of the parking lot, hypnotically chewing down to the paper, butter squeezing out the sides.

A woman stops to talk to me as cars pull around my slow-moving figure.

Ever since moving right around the corner, I've been stopping at Bagelicious a couple times a week. Sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for a snack. It's always a good time for my taste buds.

An older man who works there jokingly yells at me almost every time I'm in there. The first time I'm asking for a toasted bagel and there's a line and he's yelling at me that the toaster isn't working. I wonder if maybe he's just saying that because he doesn't want to toast my bagel while it's busy. I later find out the toaster was broken. Luckily, it had no impact on how good the bagels were.

The second time I get yelled at it's because I get confused about the price of a buttered bagel. It's the only thing I'm ordering and I'm staring at the sign that says $1 and he rings me up $1.70. I forgot to add the butter to my calculations (do people even eat plain bagels?) and then immediately ask, "$.70 for butter?" and he answers me and yells at me at the same time in a charming way. I shake my head but smile on the way out--I can't wait to go back. He's like the soup guy from Seinfeld.

I figure, if I worked for a place, any place, and that place's name ended with the letters "licious," I'd probably hardly be in a good mood either. There needs to be a counterbalance to the sheer brightness of that suffix or else everything in the universe is thrown off. In other words, all is forgiven.

So today, I'm wandering through traffic munching on my French Toast bagel wondering what the stuff inside is that makes it so good. But mostly I'm enjoying the taste. This is one of the best bagels I've ever had.

Chewing on a bite, I look up at the woman walking past. She smiles and asks, "Delicious?"

No, I say.

Not delicious--Bagelicious.