I have recently decided that bagels, everyone's office treat, are evil.

Yes, evil I said, pure and down right Evil. Its right up there with the 7 deadly sins - even might include some of them. Definately Lust and Gluttony. Maybe even Lying, if you are on a diet.

I would like to know who decided to create something that is pure carbohydrate with a whole bunch of fat thrown in for good measure. And then, we are not allowed to eat it plain, we must slather it with either butter or cream cheese just to make it edible. And Americans wonder why they are obese! We even have flavored cream cheeses now to go on flavored bagels. Strawberry cream cheese on honey wheat bagels, garden vegetable cream cheese on sesame seed bagels, salmon cream cheese on everything bagels, and the list goes on and on... The creations are endless and mind-boggling.

And then we come to the issue of the shape. It is round - with a hole! What is the deal with the hole' Its just missing bagel, so you don't even get all the bagel the size promises. And do you realize that with a hole in the middle of your bagel, the cream cheese falls out? Even if you are real careful to get it only on the edges, it still squirms out the middle. Also, to expound further on the shape - you have no choice but to cut the bagel in half to eat it. Then you have to eat TWO cream cheese slathered peices of extremely dense bread, and you cant just take half, because that is not PC in the office workplace. No one else wants just half a bagel...

And why do we have to toast them? So they won't be rubbery! Who came up with this idea. You have to find a bagel you want (which can be some different kind of difficult than ever before experienced) and then cut it in half - then toast it! America, do you realize we have special toasters just for bagels'!? then you have to yank the hot bagel out of the too-tiny toaster slot and slather fat all over it.

Ok, I know, there are lots of things in God's beautiful world that are super fatty. But they aren't hand delivered to your office meeting every Friday morning to sit on a platter in the middle of the table and look as delectable as water to a man stranded in the middle of the desert (at least that is not a sin). I should probably liken this more to a 17 year old sneaking into the strip club for the first time.

There is no way to resist this temptation. Not only is it a beatiful sight, amazing taste, and you get to watch all your friends doing it, but it has this mouth watering aroma to draw you to it and forget your senses. The plate of bagels has an unfair advantage over my Atkins diet and even over my own pitiful willpower. Then, if you deny, you get treated like you just turned down a beer at a frat party. "C'mon man, take one, it won't hurt you. Why are you on a diet anyways, you are too skinny as it is. Healthy? You want to stay healthy? Again, one won't hurt you. C'mon, have a little cream cheese - its Pineapple flavored..."

So finally, I pick it up. Cut it in half. Toast it. Yank it out of the too small toaster. Cover it in cream cheese. Place it on my paper plate. Let the digestion process begin!

Lord, I love bagels...