"Don't take me alive" by, Dane Kerge 1/17/05

The incompetence in the Dunkin' Donuts was staggering. It was 6 a.m. on a 10 degree morning in Manhattan. A rich 40 year-old father waited in front of the counter in the cramped shop with his 8 year old daughter as the overmatched Middle Eastern man behind the counter prepared the man's 6 large coffees. The father's sparkling new BMW 745i idled on Lexington Avenue just outside. I wanted my steak-egg-and-cheese bagels, dammit, but as I waited behind the arrogant man, he had me totally boxed out from the counter. I walked out of the shop to get a newspaper, hoping that when I returned, I could get my order without waiting on line at this absurdly early and cold hour.

No such luck. When I returned with the NY Post scrunched under my arm, not only was the father asking unctuously "Are there napkins in the bag?", but a Middle Eastern cabdriver was now waiting in front of me. Apparently, though, he had put in his order because after the mentally challenged Donut man handed the father some napkins (I guess there were none in the bag) he bagged up the cabbie's order. Finally!

"Two steak-egg-and-cheeses." I barked rapid-fire. As I saw Donut moron reach for two bland-looking plain bagels, I asked, "Can I have those on everything bagels?"

"Yes." Donut man said compliantly.

"You said you had no bagels!" the cabbie curiously shouted as he turned away from the door to upbraid the Donut slave. Curious because the bagels were in plain sight in the donut rack. The angry cabbie whirled again and left, emitting an audible sigh which I guessed was supposed to make the Donut kid feel bad. As Donut idiot microwaved my bagels to the heat of the core of a nuclear reaction, I started singing out loud,

"I got a case, of dynamite. I can hold out here all night. Well, I crossed my old man in Oregon, don't take me alive."