Not Bagel

It was a lovely brunch, with out-of-town family and friends getting a chance to visit and chat. Being a Sunday morning and being held in a Manhattan apartment, it featured classic New York City fixings, from coffee and fruit to bagels and lox, and I baked a cinnamon coffee cake to add to the bounty. Some good stories, some funny memories, and gracious and welcoming hosts made it a perfect gathering.

Well, almost perfect: I got shut out of the salt bagel I had been eyeing.

There were plenty of others to choose from and so I rolled with it: I had the poppy version and enjoyed it almost as much. But I still had the one that got away in my head, a hankering for a treat I was likely better off not having for dietary reasons, as it exceeded the recommended daily adult intake for sodium by approximately 1000%. Or so I told myself.

Of course, desire often trumps our better intentions. And so the next morning when I got to a client's location I don't usually frequent, I went exploring. Their cafeteria had been completely redone since my last visit, making it more like a high-end food court. There was a healthy options bar with steel-cut oats, several space age coffee machines capable of making every variety of brew at the push of a button, as well as a station with a chef making omelets. There was also a bakery section, with its wares looking appetizing and smelling fresh. Nestled between the whole grain muffins and rye bread was a tray of bagels. And there, sitting like a vein of quartz gems between the cinnamon raisons and plains, was a line of salt bagels. Proof of the deity if ever there was one.

I selected one, split it, toasted it and schmeared it (vegetable cream cheese, if you must know). I got myself a cup of coffee and a fruit cup to complete the meal, and headed to checkout. This facility followed the trend of many newer places, using self-checkout screens with scanners for a DIY experience. I held my coffee up the screen: it recognized the item and started a tab. The same with the fruit cup: scan and post. But then came the crown jewel in its cardboard clamshell container.

If you've ever been to a self-serve food bar (and I'm sure you have), you've seen these containers near assorted stations in various sizes for users to load up with meals as they see fit. Since they are for multiple uses they can't really be scanned, and it is up to the individual to find the match in the checkout system and key it in, weighing the container if that is appropriate. I went back to the home screen and started to drill down through the menus. "Breakfast:" a good start. "Baked Goods:" so far on the right track. But here the trail went cold. There were muffins and toast, cinnamon rolls and pastries. No bagel.

As I wondered what to do, a cafeteria employee wandered by. "Oh yeah," he said, "that's not in the system. Just pick another baked good and key it in. That'll have to do for now." So in a world of AI, where we can recognize voices and respond in kind, create pictures in the style of Picasso that never existed, and write letters of recommendation from a few bullet points in seconds, the best scenario they could come up with was to click on something "not bagel."

It recalled an episode of a show called "Silicon Valley" about a bunch of software developers. One of the programmers living in a hacker house was working on an app called SeeFood that was supposed to be able to identify every edible. They test it by scanning a hot dog, and it returns "Hot Dog." They start jumping up and down, thinking that this will make them rich. Then they test it with a slice of pizza it says "Not Hot Dog." One of the backers asks "That's... that's it? It only does hot dogs?" The coder responds "No, it also does 'not hot dog.'" And that's about where I was: not bagel.

I cleared the screen and keyed in that I had a coffee and muffin combo, added the fruit and tapped my card. The screen whirred then chirped, and noted the sale was completed. I took my haul and wandered off to find a quiet place to indulge my high blood pressure inducing gluttony. Yes, it was salty, but that's kind of like lamenting that a Jeep rides like a Jeep. Sheer breakfast bliss, whatever you call it in the computer. Next time I go there perhaps they will have updated their software, and we'll see if the price for a bagel is the same as for a not bagel.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries not to eat too many breakfast bakery items, but it's hard. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Mistake or Scam?

The dystopian mystery black-comedy psychological thriller science fiction drama series "Severance" revolves around a company whose employees agree to have their work brain severed from their personal one. Their "Innie" and "Outie" have no knowledge of what the other is doing, even as they live and react to their respective worlds in a similar manner. While we may all have wished at one time or another if we could leave the cares and responsibilities of our jobs at the office, this takes that to a whole other level.

That said, our lives are indeed bifurcated, but the dividing line isn't work and play. Rather it's online in the digital world vs. offline in the physical world. And flipping the contrivance of the show, while we have complete awareness of that other side of our personality when we move from sphere to sphere, the two sides are often distinct and different beings. We use aliases, pseudonyms and avatars to represent ourselves in the online world specifically to mask who we are in the real one. On top of that, at times our digital selves act and react in ways that not only run counter to how our IRL selves might behave, but do so in ways that would cause those physical beings to be embarrassed or even horrified 

At its most extreme we adopt a completely different personage when playing a game, leaving a review or commenting on an article, one that can be more honest, more aggressive or more downright mean than anything we would demonstrate if the audience could see us. It goes the other way as well: online we can be quieter or more suspicious than we might be in similar situations were we standing next to a person. There we generally don't stare, we give someone the benefit of the doubt, and go out of our way to assume they mean no harm. But behave that way online? Are you crazy?

Case in point, and with apologies to Rod Serling, for your consideration. We were having dinner at a friend's house on a Saturday night. My watch vibrated, indicating a message. A quick glance confirmed it was neither my mother nor our kids, so I ignored it. Then it quickly happened again, again, again and again, five times in total. Curious now, I apologized to our hosts and pulled out my phone to take a look. 

The first message was notice of a payment via Venmo for $20 from a name that meant nothing. The next one was a friend request from that same name, followed by two messages from that person. In the first, he/she/it commented on the payment: "Bro I sent it to the wrong person please give me that back please." The next message was an apology for the trouble. The last was from the service itself, an actual request for payment. 

And here's where the divide between the two worlds is painfully obvious. Had I been standing in a store and a guy in front of me dropped a twenty, I would not have hesitated to pick it up and give it back. Had he left his money clip sitting at a bar, I would have picked it up and run after him to return it. Indeed, one time I was getting off the train and saw a wallet on the seat. I found the owner's name inside, called him and when I returned home after work that day drove it over to his house. As an aside, he gave me a bottle of wine for my trouble; it was appreciated but unnecessary. 

In each case it would never have crossed my mind that I was being played. But because this was the online world, that was the first thing I thought of. Sure, it could have been an innocent mistake, an Occam's razor approach where the simplest explanation is probably correct. But could it also have been a nefarious plot by some crime syndicate to get me to cough up twenty bucks AND gain access to my banking information and all my accounts? Perhaps I've seen too many movies or TV shows with a twist (like "Severance"), but that second scenario seemed just as plausible. 

I wrestled with just writing "Here you go!" and sending the twenty bucks back to him/her/it. That's what my "Real-Lifey" would have done if we were at a party or a store or a restaurant. But my "On-Liney" wasn't that trusting. I contacted the fraud department at Venmo and sent them screen shots of this possible shakedown. It only took a day or so for them to conclude from their investigation that, to put it in Freudian terms, sometimes a mistaken payment is just a mistaken payment. They reversed the transaction and the universe went back to level.

I prefer my IRL self, and like being with people who I hope are also trusting of me and my motives. But stick a screen between us, and all bets are off. With apologies to Peter Steiner and his famous carton with 2 pooches, on the internet, nobody knows you're a solicitous friend. You might actually be an international cybercriminal. And who's to know?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries not to click on any link he doesn't know. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

License to Chill

My wife's driver's license was up for renewal, and while she could opt for the basic model she had had for many years, she wanted to upgrade to the new REAL standard. That federally compliant version was enacted in response to the September 11 attacks to tighten ID requirements in critical situations such as boarding aircraft. It was supposed to take effect in 2011, but there were numerous pauses and extensions. And now push has come to shove, with the new drop-dead date being May 7 of this year.

To obtain the new card means not just a renewal form, but providing proof of person and residence such as social security card, utility bill and the like. The idea is that the REAL card is somewhat akin to a passport, enabling guards at sensitive sites such as airports or nuclear facilities to know that the person presenting the card has been vetted by the government, and is who they say they are. But to accurately assess those forms and to confirm that you are you, online isn't good enough. And that meant we had to take a trip which struck fear in both my wife's and my hearts: we had to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

It's hard to imagine a governmental agency that has a worse reputation. There are endless black humor jokes about visits, many involving skeletons standing in line. Politicians regularly reference the department as the prima facie example of bureaucratic dysfunction. Even the "The Simpsons" has a whole sub-genre of DMV themed bits. ("Some days we don't let the line move at all. We call those weekdays.")

And it was all with good reason. The people who worked there appeared to hate their jobs, were surly in attitude, and seemed to take the least helpful approach whenever possible. The lines were legendary, both in length (endless) and speed (none). And it was routine that no matter what documentation you had it was the wrong stuff, necessitating a round of pleading with the clerk (see above) or being directed to a different line (see above) or leaving and returning at another time, likely to repeat the same frustrations (see above and above).

In fairness, though, it had been more than a minute since either of us had been to the DMV. And it turns out much has changed, trying to bring what was the punchline of too many jokes into this century. For starters, you can't just walk in. That makes the lines manageable if not non-existent. You go online and make a reservation, promising an appointment within a 15-minute window. Once there, you check in with an agent, and are sent immediately to a window to update your picture. In our case it happened quickly and with a smile. But then the clerk uttered those words of dread: "go stand in that line." 

As it turns out, it was no real worry. There was one guy in front of us, and the wait to be assigned to the next agent was just a few moments. While not warm and bubbly she was certainly efficient. She reviewed all the proffered paperwork, had us check all was correct on a screen, sign the same, and insert a credit card to pay. They even took Apple, Google and Samsung pay. It was almost like a real business.

There was a moment of old school panic when she went to print out a temporary license while the new one was being processed. She turned and slid a form into a printer and pressed a button. Nothing. She took it out and tried again. Still nothing. She took it out, banged on the side and tried again. Third time being a charm, the machine sucked in the paper and did its job. She slid it across the counter to us, told us to look for the real one in seven to ten days, and bid us a good day. Elapsed time inside: less than 20 minutes. 

Perhaps nothing indicated the change so much as something I noted in the lobby on the way out. Next to the registration window, where there used to be a carousel vending machine if you needed a writing implement, was a basket with pens, as well as clips to keep your potato chip bag closed, both free. Free! Had they also been giving out chips to go with the clip, I would have given it a sixth star.

And here we are, 10 days later, and her new license just showed up in the mail. True, she's not happy with her picture, but aside from that it was as streamlined a process as you could hope for. Does this indicate that at least this government agency has gone all 21st-century customer servicey? All it will take is a friendly AI assistant, and you could be forgiven for thinking that they outsourced the department to Amazon.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has a license good till 2027. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Mushed Together

The idea of a crossover is simple: take a thing popular in one arena and meld with one that's a hit in a different sphere. As opposed to an all-weather coat that keeps you neither warm nor dry, the hope is you get the best of both sides of the bargain. It's an idea that has had success most spectacularly in the automotive market. There they crossed a passenger car and with a pickup truck, resulting in a vehicle with a high cabin and a smooth ride, the ubiquitous Sport Utility Vehicle or SUV. From just 4% of the market in 2000, they now make up over 45% of all vehicles sold in the United States. 

You see it as companies look for synergies both inside and outside their own industry. It might be brands combining the expertise each has to make a product optimized for both, such as an Apple/Nike watch or a Doritos/Taco Bell burrito. In clothing you have Adidas and Allbirds coming together to create a sustainable running shoe. The movies have made an entire genre out of this approach, banding individual superhero stories into one mega supersized mishmash. "The Avengers," Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Justice League" are just some films predicated on the theory that says if one guy with a cape is good, three or four are even better.

That entertainment crossover actually started in the TV world, long before "Friends/Mad About You" and "The Simpsons/Family Guy." In "Lucy and Superman" Lucy didn't want to disappoint her son at his birthday party after promising him that the Man of Steel would make an appearance. After George Reeves has to cancel, she dons a cape and crawls out on the ledge only to be joined by the real Superman. From the ledge he queries her husband. Superman: "Do you mean to say that you've been married to her for 15 years?" Ricky: "Yeah, 15 years!" Superman: "And they call ME Superman!"

The latest set of strange bedfellows melds the areas of beauty and food. At first blush (no pun intended) it wouldn't seem that they are natural buddies. And yet inspired by Gen Z consumers, collaborations that reflect the indulgent eating of youth are combined with makeup products that reflect those flavors and colors. Forget beige, taupe and nude. Rather it's glazed donut nails, cinnamon toast hair and latte makeup. It might not be the same as basic black but it's become at least as ubiquitous as leggings.

Just this past week skincare brand Native joined the fray and went non-native. Advertised as creating products that are "clean and simple" they offer a line of products including deodorant, body wash, shampoo and conditioner. Their definitions and mine differ, however, as to what constitutes "native." For while I'd be happy to find it, wherever I look in the natural world I can't seem to spot an organic version of a cream-filled donut with chocolate on it. 

Yet that is part of their new collaboration with Dunkin'. Based on the chain's popular wares, they are releasing each of the aforementioned products in Strawberry Frosted, Vanilla Sprinkle, Blueberry Cobbler, and yes, Boston Kreme. And they are hardly alone in smushing together food that goes on your face as opposed to in it. Dove teamed up with Crumbl Cookies to offer similar products in Lemon Glaze, Strawberry Crumb Cake and Confetti Cake.

Perhaps it's not that much of a reach. Shampoo has been available for years from multiple manufacturers in coconut and apple scents, and deodorants come in "Fresh" and Sport" varietals. From there it's a short distance to "Bakery." The only thing different really is the co-branding, but that should hardly be a surprise in a world where the formerly Sport Humanitarian Bowl game is now known as the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

One of the first Saturday Night Live's had a bit where Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner argued over whether new Shimmer was a floor wax or a dessert topping. Chevy Chase stops the fight with "Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!" He sprays some onto Radner's mop and some onto Aykroyd's butterscotch pudding.  Aykroyd blurts out "Mmm, it tastes terrific!" and Radner exalts "And look at that shine!" In that light perhaps you need to caution the kids that no matter how good it smells, your new body wash won't make their milk taste like a donut.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford love donuts, the edible kind. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.