The bandage is still there. Left thumb. The cut running up the side of the nail.
I was fixing myself a Parmesan-crusted bagel on a recent visit to my brother Derek’s house.
In order to toast a bagel, you have to cut it first.
Cutting a bagel can be like eating an In-N-Out hamburger and fries in the car. Most of the time you do it because you’re hungry, but every so often it’s important to prove that you can still eat, drive, make a phone call, and toggle back and forth between podcasts. Whatever you have to do to make the driving experience more difficult and thereby endangering everybody else on the road when you reach down for a french fry and veer from the POV lane to an off-ramp that is already behind you.
Cutting a bagel presents a similar challenge and can be somewhat of an acrobatic affair.
When I cut a bagel, I remember the ads on late-night TV for those miracle, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-product products: A bagel-cutting contraption, a secure device in which to anchor the bagel, pull the handle and voila, a bagel now perfectly divided into two equal halves.
Here’s the problem: What fun is that? There is no feeling of satisfaction if you avoid maiming yourself.
Without a contraption, the bagel slicer has two choices: Balance the bagel on end with one hand and cut downward or place the bagel flat on the counter and take a horizontal route. If you choose the first one, as I did, in order to increase the degree of difficulty, it’s not fair to use either a wooden or plastic cutting board, which affords some grip, but do it on a smooth tile or black granite countertop so that the bagel can slip around like tires on wet pavement, do a wheelie and leave behind a trail of bagel crumbs. Above all, use a serrated knife so that if you cut yourself, it will really hurt.
I opened the knife drawer and amidst a bunch of knives was a new serrated, 6-inch knife sitting in a box with a cellophane window in order to highlight its excellent German steel. The knife sat there like Excalibur waiting for Arthur to draw it out of the stone. I stood by its side as if I was a Knight of the Round Bagel.
When you cut yourself, the immediate reaction is to rewind the tape and try to uncut it. Can I take it back? Start over again?
The cut was bloodless at first, almost as if it was deciding whether to bleed or not. A few minutes later, it decided and appeared as if it would bleed until the Hale-Bopp comet returned.
I wasn’t used to sharp knives. Normally, ours are so dull that you have to start last Thanksgiving to cut this Thanksgiving’s turkey.
It’s hard to wrap a bandage around a thumb or finger one-handed so finally, burying what was left of my pride, I sought help from brother Derek.
“Do you think we ought to duct-tape it?” he asked. “Or super-glue it.”
There has never been a better time to cut yourself. If they had duct tape during the Civil War, it would have been a different story.
“Let me duct-tape that foot back on and so you can return to the battlefield.”
I thought the thumb was important but I had no idea. Every time I butter a piece of toast or apply a sweet topping, the thumb is involved and as a testimony to its utility, begins collecting culinary souvenirs between the thumb and the bandage. Subsequently, rather than opening a jar of strawberry jam, it’s possible to scoop jam from inside of the bandage from a previous meal.
In addition to the jam, I have about a half-stick of butter in there. I could go off the grid.
I change the bandage every day not because of the risk of infection but because I’m running out of room to store condiments.
I’m a new man, a changed man and a man looking for a bagel-cutting miracle on late-night TV.
January 18, 2021 at 06:26AM
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HERB BENHAM: Proud to serve as Knight of the Round Bagel - The Bakersfield Californian
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Herb
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