The Old Man Chronicles

Today, I decided I wanted to have a bagel with lox and cream cheese for breakfast. I stopped at Jaffa Bagel, which is conveniently located in the lobby of my office building.

Aside from the fact that I ordered a bagel with lox and cream cheese, the events that transpired between order and payment made me feel old. It was kind of ridiculous actually. I'll deliver this in script format:

Me: I'd like a sesame bagel with lox, tomato, onion and cream cheese.
Bagel Lady: Toasted?
Me: Yes, please.
Bagel Lady: OK.

Bagel Lady selects a sesame bagel, slices it, puts it in the toaster, then takes the next order. While she's helping the next customer, my bagel finishes toasting, and Bagel Manager picks it up.

Bagel Manager: Who had the sesame?
Me: I did.
Bagel Manager: What would you like on it?
Me: Lox, tomato, onion and cream cheese.

Bagel Manager hands the bagel back to Bagel Lady and tells her my order. She puts some lox on the bagel, then She looks at me and says:

Bagel Lady: You want tomatoes and onion?
Me:(blinks twice) Yes, please.
Bagel Lady: Cream cheese?
Me:(blinks twice more) Um...yes.
Bagel Lady: OK.

Bagel Lady builds the sandwich, wraps it, puts it in a bag, hands to the cashier. I walk to the cashier.

Cashier: What do you have?
Me: Sesame bagel with lox, tomato, onion and cream cheese.
Cashier: With cream cheese?
Me: (glances to both sides to see if perhaps there are three of me) Yes!
Cashier: So a bagel with lox and cream cheese or a lox sandwich?
Me: Is there a difference?
Cashier: Did you have tomato and onion on it?
Me: (searches around to see if there's a rewind button for the conversation) Yep. I did.

The Cashier rings up the sale, and as I'm walking away, I hear the next person in line order a blueberry bagel with plain cream cheese. Bagel Lady proceeds to ask her if she wants cream cheese on it.

Does this seem like a ridiculous experience to anyone else? Because it did to me. And then I felt old because it felt so ridiculous.

Downer's Grove

I'm interrupting the Crucible Connections series for some of my own banter. It's my blog and I get to schedule the programming how I wish.

The city of Chicago has a suburb called Downer's Grove. This town used to be home to a Sears Outlet Store before there were such things as Outlet Malls. At the beginning and middle of every school year, my mom would herd my brother and I together, and we'd head to Downer's Grove for clothes shopping.

Because i was five, six, seven years old, I had some irrational fears. Specifically pertaining to Downer's Grove, I was terrified of the place. Why? Because I thought that's where they kept everyone who had Down Syndrome, and I didn't want to catch it. Yeah, I know, you can't catch Down Syndrome. Try to explain that to a six year old. We'd drive into town, and I'd duck below the window line of the car, I'd fight with my mom when we got to the Sears because I didn't want to get out, I'd scream exactly like the little bastard that I was. The worst was the time I actually saw a kid who had Down's at the Sears Outlet.

ANYWAY, there's a reason I'm posting this. Not because it's funny, which you gotta admit, it kind of is, and not to make myself look bad, which it kind of does. I'm posting this because two people you may be familiar with after the first (and hopefully perennial) Crucible Connections series, M-Town Mikey and Bobby Fair Housing don't believe it. They think it's some sort of elaborate ploy. The inroads to my secret and cunningly insidious plan to lure them into my cult of personality, I guess.

M-Town Mikey doesn't believe that a six year old would even know about Down Syndrome. Clearly, I didn't know all that much about it because I was terrified I was going to catch it. But I knew it existed. Which is too hard to believe.

Bobby Fair Housing thinks it's a stretch that a six-year-old would come up with it on their own. Maybe, he suggests, it would be easier to believe if my brother or father told me that to scare me. Apparently, six-year-olds are incapable of abstract thought. I suppose this is possibly a legitimate point.

Whatever the case may be, it's true, and I'm still kind of scared of Downer's Grove, and I'm about to turn 30. So, like, that's that. Although, my cult of personality is open to anyone who wants to join.