The Hole Truth

These days it's fashionable to make a clean breast of things. At last count, 102 U.S. Senators have admitted to extramarital, and often extra-weird, dalliances. (For those of you who are keeping score, 96 Senators revealed affairs with members of the opposite sex, two with the same sex, one with somebody or something in a dark broom closet, and one didn't ask and wasn't told.)

For those of you who are paying attention, the big story is that there are actually two more Senators than previously thought - and that's after Pluto was downgraded to debris - which may explain why the Democrats are having such a hard time getting anything done. (We'd be better off if Harry Reid were downgraded to debris, but that is another story.)

But I digress; only a grand master digresser digresses before he establishes from what he's digressing, so kudos to me for that.

The point is, in the spirit of the times, I am going to come clean, too.

Have I slept with members of my late-night TV show staff?

Have I bolted from my wife, eight kids and reality show?

Have I enjoyed illicit encounters in the men's room at the Boise airport?

No, no, and hell no.

I am addicted to bagels.

"Well," you might say, "There are worse things than being addicted to bagels."

To which I would respond, "Yeah - being addicted to WASP bagels."

MORE THAN SCHMEAR

During the years I spent in New York, I enjoyed the finest bagels that city could offer, from Daniels to Zabar's and everything in between (including H&H and my personal favorite, Murray's).

But while in the deli-starved wasteland of Iowa, I discovered one of the best bagel shops ever. In Iowa City, Iowa. A place called Bruegger’s, the flagship of a chain started by a WASP from upstate New York who found himself attending Grinnell College in Iowa. A guy named Nordahl Brue, if you must know – a name that veritably pegs the WASP-O-Meter.

God knows why a guy from upstate New York would brave the trek to Iowa. I know lots of reasons not to, starting with weather and culture, unless they have a shorter tractor-pull season in upstate New York.

Anyway, it was in Iowa that I first developed my bagel addiction, buying dozens and dozens of the little doorstops, freezing them and enjoying them toasted.

At this point any self-respecting bagel nosher will cry “Foul!” (or, more likely, “WASP!”) because any self-respecting bagel nosher knows that it is heresy to toast a bagel, much less a frozen one.

I plead guilty with an explanation, your honor. When I lived in Iowa, the nearest Bruegger’s was over an hour way – or, as we Southern Californians say, “just down the block.” Rather than braving the elements – and you don’t know elements until you’ve lived in Iowa – I resorted to a once-a-week fresh bagel (with schmear, thank you very much) and a week of toasted frozen ones.

WORKING MODEL

But I discovered a secret weapon that hopefully will save me from nosh Purgatory (or, as Dante would put it, “The second bagel of Hell”): the Cuisinart CPT-180 toaster, which has settings for both “Defrost” and “Bagel.” And unlike many Cuisinart products, this one is not a steaming pile of bat excrement in the shape of an appliance.

So now, although we live a mere stone’s throw from the neighborhood Bruegger’s, the once-a-week dozen-plus-one-with-schmear habit persists, thanks to our trusty CPT-180.

Self-respecting bagel noshers are even more pissed, I’m sure. But for them I have a simple response:

I’m a WASP. So sue me.