News to Him

On my way into work today, I stopped at Bruegger’s for breakfast. “Cinnamon raisin bagel with smoked salmon spread, please,” I ordered. So the guy gets a bagel, slices it, and as he’s spreading the cream cheese, he looks up and says to me, “You know, there’s another word for this.” Intrigued, I asked what that was. “Lox,” he tells me. Now, I hate to mock the guy or anything, because he was being friendly and sharing something he thought I might not know, but of all things, that was kind of an amusing thing to tell me — especially in a bagel place — given that, well, I’m Jewish (which he couldn’t have known) and bagels and lox are something I eat often. In fact, usually when I want to order lox, I have to ask for smoked salmon simply because places like Bruegger’s and Finagle a Bagel don’t know from lox. But amusement aside, I figured I should return the favor. “Actually,” I said to the guy, “it’s also known as nova.” The guy looked at me, smiled, and said, “That’s a new one for me.” So maybe I did a service today, and I helped to educate a Bruegger's employee. Who knows? Maybe one day soon I'll even be able to stop in and order a bagel with lox spread.

[And to my readers who know better, yes, I know lox and nova are not exactly the same, nor is smoked salmon. That’s a detail that’s not really worth getting into at Bruegger’s.]