Golden Touch CRAPS

She is a sour-faced, sun-dried leather-skinned snarling worker at my local bagel shop. Her face looks as if it has been permanently burned at the beach since she was a fetus - maybe 50 years ago at the least.

And oh man is she nasty.

This morning I went in and one person was ahead of me. A pleasant young worker was getting the other customer's order and I didn't see "leather-face" in the place. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked to the ceiling, "Thank you, God, thank you."

You see, I like my bagels soft but when "leather-face" takes my order she invariably gives me hard bagels - hard enough to kill a person if you hit that person over the head with one. But when others wait on me I usually get a reasonably soft bagel. The problem is that for some ungodly reason I tend to get "leather-face" about 90 percent of the time when I go to the bagel shop.

It doesn't matter if the place is crowded with a half dozen workers behind the counter. Nope. For some reason when my turn comes, it is her turn to wait on me.

Now, the other customer was being rung up and "leather-face" stormed out from the back. She looked around the store, "Who's next?" I looked around the store. I was the only customer in the place other than the person being checked out.

"I guess I am," I said.

"You're next?" she snarled.

"I am the only person in the store," I said. "Two sesame bagels. Please, really soft."

She took out two bricks.

"Those look kind of hard," I said.

"Those are the softest I got," she growled and put them in a bag. She didn't wrinkle or fold the bag at the top so when she put the bag on the counter one of the bricks, uh, bagels, fell out. She picked it up with her non-gloved weathered hand and shoved it back into the bag.

I paid and walked out. I got in my car. AP was driving as we were headed for our 6:30AM swim.

I banged the bagels on the dashboard. "They are like cement," I said.

"Why don't you complain?" she asked.

"Look, this woman is an idiot. To complain I would have to lower myself to her level. It would be the kind of conversation you had with demented high school students. They wouldn't listen carefully and assess what you were saying; they would come back with a 'your mother screws animals.' It's not worth it. I have to find another bagel shop out of town."

You see, this is all because God has a truly twisted sense of humor when it comes to me and the bagel shop.

Years ago there was this Mexican girl who worked there. That's fine. Welcome to America! But unfortunately she couldn't speak English. She never got an order right. I'd order sesame; she'd give me salt. I ordered salt; she'd give me poppy. She'd hand you some other customer's bag instead of the one with your bagels and when you got home you had raisin bagels. I hate raisins in my bagels.

She's gone now - maybe back to her village in Juarez - but I would take a hundred of her compared to the viperness of "leather-face."

Luckily I only give myself the pleasure of a bagel a couple of times a week. But those times are like a near-eternity in purgatory as I wait to see if I can circumvent my winding up with her taking my order.

I have a little prayer: "Dear God, for crying out loud, is it too much to ask for a soft bagel?"