How Ann Arbor Did Me Wrong (vol. 1)-- Or, Screw You, Bruegers Bagels

1. Brueger's Bagels. Fuck you, Brueger's Bagels.

We had driven -in a Ryder truck that wouldn't go over 65 mph- from Philadelphia to Baltimore to Ann Arbor, packing and unpacking three times along the way. I woke up the next day tired, sore, lonely and homesick... and very hungry.

We drove down the road in this random new place looking for an Einstein Bros. (There was one directly across the street from my old apartment in Baltimore, where everything was perfect and the sun was always shining.) No Einsteins, but in the first strip mall we came to, there was a Brueger's Bagels.

I was dubious, but hungry, so in we went. I ordered a cinnamon sugar bagel, toasted, with light cream cheese. The asshat behind the counter replied that he could not toast my bagel. "Why?" I asked.

"It's against the law," he informed me .

I was so sad and homesick, I left the store and started to cry. All I wanted was a toasted bagel like they have in Baltimore. Dave stayed behind to get me a non-toasted bagel.

My tears stopped but my bitterness started. WTF??? It's against the law to toast bagels in Ann Arbor??? I have never heard anything in my life so fucking ridiculous as a city that bans bagel-toasting. Fuck you, Brueger's Bagels. I took that fucking bagel home and toasted it myself.

And fuck you, Ann Arbor. I knew right then and there that it was going to be a long three years.