Friday, January 20, 2006
Bagel O' Doom.* Most of my problems this week can be traced to a bagel I ate on Tuesday afternoon. I was ever so hungry after eating no lunch, so I bought this onion bagel with avocado, capsicum, cheese, cucumber, tomato, corn and hommus. At the bagelry from which I purchased it, all the bagels have ludicrous names like "Park Avenue" and "Little Italy". I can't remember what mine was called, perhaps the "Battery" or "Nolita". I wish it had been called "Meat Packing District", because it was vegetarian and that would be funny.
(Someone should go to New York and start a Melbourne-themed food shop where all the items have names like "Little Collins", "NewQuay", "Paris End", "King Street", and my personal favourite, "Greek Precinct". (Don't you think "Greek Precinct" would be a perfect 1970s cop-show gay porno? Kinda like Arsesky & Crotch.) I don't know what the food in question would be. Pies? Dimmies? Maybe chiko rolls. Yeah! Gourmet chiko rolls!)
Anyway. Back to the Bagel O' Doom! The Bagel O' Doom first reared its fearsome ring-shaped head in old New York, or New Purple as it was known in those days. (This was in the days before black had established itself as the colour to which all others would be compared.) Many New Purplers were laid low by its indigestible and doughy consistency, or at least got dreadful cramps in their jaw muscles from trying to fit it in their mouths and chew it, before an unscrupulous Melbourne bagel franchisee read about it in a dusty old history tome.
"A wonder bagel this is!" marvelled Manny McMann, shortly to become the proprietor of Shithouse Bagel Shop on Johnston Street, Fitzroy. "So doughy! So robust and full of healthful vegetable matter! I must have it on my menu!"
Before too long, hordes of groaning, zombie-like customers were staggering out of Shithouse Bagel Shop onto Brunswick Street. But nobody paid much attention, for Centrelink was next door, and the Housing Commission flats down the road, and everyone assumed these were just more local junkies.
At first, I put down my queasiness to eating lunch at 4pm, and then running around in town rather than lying down. But then on Wednesday, I woke up with that sort of stomach ache you get when you binge-eat all day, or eat a heavy meal too late at night. This lasted all day, and was at its worst when I was walking to goddamn North Melbourne (the "Do not make me run; I am full of chocolate!" effect). I didn't know whether I was hungry or too full, and as a result I didn't eat anything all day Wednesday, and then made the mistake of going grocery shopping, which resulted in my dinner being an entire container of Safeway brand potato salad, which I'd bought on special for $2.
Wednesday night my stomach was feeling so queasy, and my neck so sore from sitting at an ergonomically unsound workplace, that I set my phone alarm to go off at 2am with the reminder "Check for meningococcal rash now!" Needless to say, I slept poorly. My housemates, likewise, have not been having a good week. Natalya's crush told her he just wanted to be friends, which in the baseball system, we joked, is like being caught at short stop. And Nicolette has been watching waaaaay too much Twin Peaks. She set up a bed on the couch and watched Twin Peaks for two days straight. Meep, however, is still on the high of killing a bird in the last days of 2005 and batting it around on my bedroom floor. You have been warned. She has killed and she will kill again.
I think I'm okay now, though. Today I have eaten and drunk:
1200ml water
1 cup of tea
spicy sliced pork on rice
1 large orange/raspberry Slurpee
I think my stomach is back in business!
Shot zooms out through the hole in the centre of the BAGEL O' DOOM, hiding behind the door. BAGEL O' DOOM begins to laugh. Softly at first, but then growing more and more maniacal until it begins coughing up bits of corn and gobs of avocado and is forced to speak by wiggling its cut-up halves together and apart.
(Someone should go to New York and start a Melbourne-themed food shop where all the items have names like "Little Collins", "NewQuay", "Paris End", "King Street", and my personal favourite, "Greek Precinct". (Don't you think "Greek Precinct" would be a perfect 1970s cop-show gay porno? Kinda like Arsesky & Crotch.) I don't know what the food in question would be. Pies? Dimmies? Maybe chiko rolls. Yeah! Gourmet chiko rolls!)
Anyway. Back to the Bagel O' Doom! The Bagel O' Doom first reared its fearsome ring-shaped head in old New York, or New Purple as it was known in those days. (This was in the days before black had established itself as the colour to which all others would be compared.) Many New Purplers were laid low by its indigestible and doughy consistency, or at least got dreadful cramps in their jaw muscles from trying to fit it in their mouths and chew it, before an unscrupulous Melbourne bagel franchisee read about it in a dusty old history tome.
"A wonder bagel this is!" marvelled Manny McMann, shortly to become the proprietor of Shithouse Bagel Shop on Johnston Street, Fitzroy. "So doughy! So robust and full of healthful vegetable matter! I must have it on my menu!"
Before too long, hordes of groaning, zombie-like customers were staggering out of Shithouse Bagel Shop onto Brunswick Street. But nobody paid much attention, for Centrelink was next door, and the Housing Commission flats down the road, and everyone assumed these were just more local junkies.
At first, I put down my queasiness to eating lunch at 4pm, and then running around in town rather than lying down. But then on Wednesday, I woke up with that sort of stomach ache you get when you binge-eat all day, or eat a heavy meal too late at night. This lasted all day, and was at its worst when I was walking to goddamn North Melbourne (the "Do not make me run; I am full of chocolate!" effect). I didn't know whether I was hungry or too full, and as a result I didn't eat anything all day Wednesday, and then made the mistake of going grocery shopping, which resulted in my dinner being an entire container of Safeway brand potato salad, which I'd bought on special for $2.
Wednesday night my stomach was feeling so queasy, and my neck so sore from sitting at an ergonomically unsound workplace, that I set my phone alarm to go off at 2am with the reminder "Check for meningococcal rash now!" Needless to say, I slept poorly. My housemates, likewise, have not been having a good week. Natalya's crush told her he just wanted to be friends, which in the baseball system, we joked, is like being caught at short stop. And Nicolette has been watching waaaaay too much Twin Peaks. She set up a bed on the couch and watched Twin Peaks for two days straight. Meep, however, is still on the high of killing a bird in the last days of 2005 and batting it around on my bedroom floor. You have been warned. She has killed and she will kill again.
I think I'm okay now, though. Today I have eaten and drunk:
1200ml water
1 cup of tea
spicy sliced pork on rice
1 large orange/raspberry Slurpee
I think my stomach is back in business!
Shot zooms out through the hole in the centre of the BAGEL O' DOOM, hiding behind the door. BAGEL O' DOOM begins to laugh. Softly at first, but then growing more and more maniacal until it begins coughing up bits of corn and gobs of avocado and is forced to speak by wiggling its cut-up halves together and apart.
BAGEL O' DOOM* Amanda insisted on the apostrophe.
You can't resist my healthy delights for long! I'll get you next time, Mel! NEXT TIME!
