Egads, today has dragged. Dragged badly enough that it made it feel like a Thursday. Even though its not.
I blame the bagel-dawg I ate earlier. Somehow it made time slow down. I had no plans to eat a bagel-dawg today, however when I was out during my lunch break and I was puttering around in my boiling hot un-air conditioned car, I decided to drop into Einstein's bagels and buy something cheap simply so I could mooch their AC while I read a book. Inside I spied out the rock-hard bagel-dawg that they display; sort of like those fake-deserts they show you at restaurants. I gave my order to a girl with sandy blonde hair and perky breasts and a face that for the life of me I cannot remember. She rang up my order and I kept my face a frozen mask of pleasantness while I raged on the inside as I realized I had just paid five bucks for a goddamn bagel-dawg.
So I sat at a table and tried to slowly eat my bagel-dawg, which is really sort of hard because there is only so much time you can put into eating a hot dog wrapped in micro-waved bagel bread. I finished it in a relatively short time, and pushed my basket to the side. Much to my annoyance some fat lady and her full-grown-yet-mama's-boy-looking son stepped up to my table. They had apparently spied out me finishing the last bits of my bagel-dawg and assumed I was going to get up and leave. I kept my nose in my book and tried to ignore them. But I could not… The lady beamed a fat-lady-wanting-a-table beam directly into my forehead and the impatient fidgeting of her man-child fueled it. Finally, I decided she had won. With a sigh I got up and tossed my trash away. As I walked out the door I saw the man-child gleefully slip into my chair, eagerly absorbing my ass-warmth. He had a joyous expression on his face that cried 'lookit what mama did for me!'.
Not wanting to boil in my car I went back to work where my company got even more free time out of me.
Tonight I am going to the draft house to see Harry Potter. I have been to the draft house rather a lot as of late, however there are movies that keep coming out that I want to see and the draft house is the only place I can stand to see a movie these days.
Last time I was at the draft house while I was waiting for the movie to begin, I noticed I could shine the LED flashlight on my cell phone at the screen and make an impressive shadow puppet on it. It took up the entire screen. Today I started wondering what could be the most obscene shadow I could beam up on to the screen. I decided it had to be a vintage naughty key chain my father owned, a pewter key chain that featured a naked girl and a naked guy with an alarmingly large penis. By pulling a little lever on the key chain back and fourth, you could make the dude greedily hump the girl. I decided that would probably cast a pretty lewd shadow up on the big screen.
Alas, I am not sure what Happened to that key chain. I think I might have stolen it at one point and then promptly lost it. A shame.
(looks at watch) Damn bagel dawg.
2026 Update
Setting the dial to September 2007, where a five-dollar bagel-dog turns a Tuesday into a Thursday and a man-child steals chair warmth.
Ah, 2007, when a grown man could pay five dollars for a sad microwaved hot dog in bagel form, blame it for warping time, then briefly fantasize about projecting a pewter novelty key chain onto a movie screen while ignoring strangers who wanted his table. You were a contented little rat in that air-conditioned dispensation, Ed, and you didn't even know your luck. In 2026, that entire performance would be live-streamed: the bagel-dog would be photographed, reviewed, and roasted on social media before you finished chewing. The pleasant blonde cashier would exist only as a blurry figure in an employee-of-the-month TikTok. The hoverers at your table would be beseeching you with phone battery anxiety instead of beaming psychic impatience, and the cinema itself would have recliners, assigned seating, a reservation system, a four-dollar service fee, and a rule against flashlights that is actually enforced. Some truths remain: hot dogs wrapped in bread still look better than they taste, men still mourn the tiny treasures they stole from their fathers, and everyone still wants somebody else's warm chair. But now the warm chair has a USB port.
“2007 Ed, was the stale bagel-dog worth giving up your table to strangers, and did you ever find that key chain before your father noticed it had gone walking?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, was the bagel-dawg worth it? Hell no. Five bucks for a hot dog wrapped in microwaved bread, and it made time crawl like a dying snail. But the AC was worth it, and honestly, giving up the table to that man-child? That was worth it too, in a droll sort of way. He looked so darn pleased with himself, soaking up my ass-warmth like it was a prize from the fair. I couldn't even be mad. As for the key chain, no, I never found the damn thing. I figure either my father found it and is too embarrassed to mention it, or it's lurking in some box in his garage, waiting to shock a future generation. Egads, the thought of that pewter dude humping away on a movie screen still makes me laugh though. Take that, stale bagel-dawg.
