Finagling Bagels

Yesterday, I was standing in line to get soup at Finagle a Bagel, and this guy standing right behind me says, out of nowhere, “Do you think Boston is a rude city?” I turned around and looked up at the tallish man, probably in his sixties, with balding white hair and a large, beaky, sort of nose. He was very white, with some weathered-looking spots, and his brown tweed jacket made him look like he could have well been a Harvard professor, slightly out of place in Downtown Crossing. I didn’t ask. I wasn’t sure quite how to respond. I wanted to jump up and down – yes! But, well, you know, it’s not as if everyone is actually rude. And maybe rude isn’t really the word for it. It’s just that people are not particularly warm, in general, which is to say nothing of many individual people who are quite lovely. I just don’t think it’s the atmosphere Boston has, and whether it’s good or bad depends on your preference.

I don’t think he really cared what I thought. Obviously this man thought it was very bad and annoying. “Do you live here?” I asked.
“I’ve lived here for forty-two years,” he lamented.
“Well, why didn’t you move?”
“If I had moved twenty years ago, I’d be so much happier.”
“Hm.” Well, I couldn’t exactly help him there.
“I just think people here are so rude, don’t you?”
“I guess so, yes.” It was like he was watching my every move and facial twitch. Was he trying to incriminate me? Get me to be rude to him to prove his point? How nice could I be and still be considered a Rude Bostonian no matter what I did, no matter how polite? Because then it was my turn in line and I had to excuse myself.

I ordered my mushroom barley soup, plain raisin bagel and got my juice. As I was waiting for the order, the man stood leaning against the counter, staring blandly into somewhere in the air in front of him. He didn’t seem to acknowledge my existence anymore. But since I didn’t want to be a Rude Bostonian, you know, because I am pretty much not a Rude Bostonian, I said to him, It’s not too late. If you don’t like it, move now.

“If I had moved twenty years ago…”

And that was pretty much the end of it. The conversation wasn’t going anywhere, because it really wasn’t a conversation. I didn’t even bother to mention that I planned to leave as soon as is physically possible for me anyway. But I guess it gave me a little boost to remind me that, yes, I really do want to leave Boston. Otherwise I’ll suddenly be forty, and I’ll be that old man, staring into space and accosting random people in the bagel line, growling about how “rude” a city Boston is. Not that he was really improving the image any.