Dartblog

I was going to write this entry yesterday morning. And then, before that, I was going to write it Tuesday morning. In fact, every morning as I step out of the building, across the street, and into the Dunkin’ Donuts by Grand Central, I have it in my mind to write this entry. Mostly, it was the enjoyment of my Dunkin’ Donuts products upon my return that prevented me from doing so. But now the situation has reached its apex. And here I am, telling you.

I generally like Dunkin’ Donuts and the (usually) Indian staffers who do their jobs quickly, efficiently, and orderly. Those characteristics are especially important at this Dunkin’ Donuts, which suffers a conjoined and stillborn twin known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. Both of these restaurants exist in a tiny lot on forty-second street. There is enough room, precisely, for a Dunkin’ Donuts counter, a Kentucky Fried Chicken counter, and a single-file line of unsatiated and tired coffee mavens 35 persons long, extending down the rear stairs and into the useless basement dining room. Useless for dining, that is. Indubitably useful for accomodating the equatoresque line that unfailingly forms every morning. Because of this situation, and the owner’s outrageous refusal to trash the Kentucky Fried Chicken section (a section which is understandably bereft of any actual poultry day-in and day-out) the Dunkin’ staffers must move quickly.

But that doesn’t excuse absolute synaptic disconnect, which is what I experience each morning.

I go into the little donutchicken store every morning at 9:15. And I stand in the back of the line. Every morning at 9:25 I reach the front of the line and order my medium coffee. The pacing is awkward, because things move quickly and each customer gives multiple orders (and each cashier cashes multiple purchases) at the same time. So I wait until I am asked, “Anything else?” before I order my ‘everything’ bagel with butter. This is where the trouble begins. Bagels, you see, are complicated things. It is a rare day that I am then given an everything bagel, and never have I actually gotten an everything with butter. Usually I am told that everything bagels are nonextant and would I like a garlic instead. I always say yes. I really don’t care; I just want my food. So today I decided to stop asking for the everything and make everyone’s life easier: “Toasted garlic bagel with butter, please.”

The answer comes back like a dagger: “We don’t do garlic bagels. Onion, ok?”

The real problem, and my reason for writing this, is the butter part. Does no one have butter on their bagels anymore? Every blessed day for the past several weeks I have asked for a dried-vegetable-topped bagel of some variety, toasted, with butter. And every day I get cream cheese. Help me: has the English language suddenly and unilaterally shifted to an anarchic method of pronunciation where the word “butter” sounds just like the words “cream cheese”?

For weeks I simply assumed that this kindly Indian woman hadn’t heard me correctly. I thought it was somewhat funny. A dozen times I say butter and a dozen times she proffers cream cheese. Today, I realized that it was not a funny story, but a sad one. Here is how my order went:

“Hi, can I have a medium, cream and sugar, and a toasted garlic with butter?” The man pours the coffee and she gets the bagel. “We don’t have garlic. Onion ok?” “Yes.” A slight pause as she retrieves the mystery-flavored bagel and guillotines it in two. “Ok,” she asks, with a poker face that made me, for a moment, think she was trying to put me on. “You said cream cheese, right?”

I informed her that no, I had asked for butter. I held off on reminding her that I had asked her for butter well-nigh 30 times already and have yet to receive it. A long pause as she searches the dusty depths of Dunkin’ Donuts’ cabinetry. Through the spider webs she can not find my preferred dairy product. She tells me that there is no butter and would I like cream cheese instead. I say yes, defeated. There are three lights. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

By the way, this is not cream cheese, I’m just now noticing. It is cream cheese flavored “spread.” I don’t know what the molecular foundation of “spread” is, but I’m rather certain it doesn’t come from a cow.