New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon recently caused a Great Deal of Stir by ordering a cinnamon raisin bagel with lox, cream cheese, capers, tomato and red onion. Good heavens!
But this is raisin an important question: Which bagel order marks you as fit to serve the people of your state as governor, and which correctly casts you into the Outer Darkness for all eternity? What does your order say about you? I have taken the liberty of determining this for you, using science. At any rate I think it is science. It might just be my arbitrary opinion.
Plain Bagel With Cream Cheese: Too afraid to offend anyone to take any interesting stances, you are trapped in a limbo of your own creation where although you will not be disappointed, you will never be truly delighted. You could be an alderman if you wanted.
Plain Bagel With Lox and Capers: The bagel is only a vehicle for your true desire. You are indifferent to the bagel. They could have substituted a sesame bagel for it, and you would not have noticed.
Sesame Bagel With Lox and Capers: They substituted a sesame bagel for it, and you did not notice. You would be an okay vice president or lieutenant governor.
Sesame Bagel With Cream Cheese: You wanted to eat a bagel but also to get seeds all over your hand. You are fit to govern a landlocked nation.
Plain Bagel With Nothing On It: You are the sole salmon swimming alone against the dietary trend of shooting carbohydrates on sight. What pleasure can possibly be derived from a plain bagel with nothing on it? It is just a carb torus. Your love for carbs is as strong as it is unrequited. You have a leadership position in your overly time-consuming hobby.
Salt Bagel: You are a deer in disguise under a large raincoat; you are that shape-shifting creature from the “Star Trek” episode with the large suction-cup mouth who feeds only on salt. If you are neither, you have made some sort of mistake; you cannot possibly have meant to order a large mouthful of seawater that you have to chew on for several minutes. You govern Atlantis.
Salt Bagel And Some Sort Of Sweet Cream Cheese Like The One With The Raspberry Swirl: Society cannot hope to reach you where you sit enthroned on the bones of those who last attempted to reason with you; you exist on an entirely separate moral plane; you are to be feared, not loved; you are a “Game of Thrones” character.
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Toasted With Butter: Lawful good.
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel With Cream Cheese: Neutral neutral.
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel With Red Onions, Cream Cheese and Capers: You know no gods or law; sweet and savory to you are both alike; you owe allegiance to no man. Chaotic good?
Pumpkin Bagel: You wanted a pumpkin muffin but something went wrong. “Nothing with pumpkin in it can be bad” is your unofficial creed. It has steered you astray more times than you can count. No matter. You love fall a lot; you often will tell strangers, unprompted, how excited for it you are.
Everything Bagel With Cream Cheese And A Tiny American Flag: You are trying too hard, Gov. Cuomo.
Everything Bagel With Cream Cheese And A Tiny American Flag, Eaten With A Fork: You are trying too hard, Sen. Cruz.
Asiago Bagel: You have impeccable judgment and taste in all things. Or you just like cheese a little too much and will always get it when it is an option. Only one of these things is true; be honest in your self-assessment. You are fit to govern, but you are too busy.
Blueberry Bagel: Why did we breed the bagel to be like this? It was so noble in the wild, and now look what we have done to it in captivity! What can you put on this that is not a travesty? I am ashamed, but you, you do not care. You think it is cute. You will order it anyway, you monster. You are not fit to govern, but that will not stop you.
Blueberry Bagel With Cream Cheese: This is wrong, but you don’t care. Maybe you have already taken over the condo board.
Blueberry Bagel With Something Savory: Nothing can be right when you are building your house on the foundation of a blueberry bagel; it is like shifting sands that the tide casteth away.
Onion Bagel: You like food that tastes good more than you like being around people. When you open your mouth, plants wilt. Good for you. You could be the supreme chancellor of some sort of space station that you can govern remotely via video channel.
Cranberry Walnut Bagel: You were trying to order a muffin. You often force this substitution of one obvious thing for another, clearly less desirable thing; you refer to your plants as your babies. You should not govern, but you might already be governing.
Everything Bagel: You don’t even know what is in this, but they said “everything,” and you thought that was easier than specifying what you did want. When it arrives, you will remember that “everything” is not in fact everything but is a specific combination of things you dislike, and you will pick them all out, disappointed in yourself.
Everything Bagel With Cream Cheese: The cream cheese masks your failure.
Cheddar Bagel: It is a cheese bagel, but it is the lesser of the two cheeses. Did you have the option of an Asiago bagel and refused it? What happened here? This is not the best use of cheddar or of a bagel, but perhaps it was the best option you had.
Cheddar Bagel With Cream Cheese: Okay, I am beginning to understand you and how you tick. You are a cheese lover. But somehow I cannot see you in a position of responsibility. Cheese consumes you.
Cheddar Bagel With Lox And Cream Cheese: You have too much going on; I cannot talk to you.
Poppyseed Bagel With Cream Cheese: You wanted the experience of eating a bagel, but also you wanted the experience of getting glitter all over your workspace, and so you compromised by getting a poppyseed bagel. Poppyseeds are the glitter of food. You will be finding this in your sweater days later. Once you get them out, you will be fit to govern, but you will never be able to be certain you have gotten all the seeds out.
Alexandra Petri | The Washington Post
Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.” Twitter, @petridishes
