My Fridge Eats Bagels

There are many mysteries in life. Things like why? Who? When? And What the fuck is that? One of the mysteries that mystify me and many others are disappearances. Mostly objects. Mostly objects that one needs. Things like pens, keys, hair bobbles, hair brushes, children, cars, houses, husbands, sanity etc.

Well, here in our house (which thankfully only disappears infrequently) the latest thing to disappear is food. Mostly bagels. From the fridge. One moment I have bought three tubular packaging thingys of onion bagels and stored them for safekeeping and freshness in that little drawer in the bottom of the fridge that you are meant to keep heaven knows what in. You know the ones, sort of plastic and always just a little bit dirty no matter how much you clean them. The next moment, when youngest daughter needs her bagel fix, the bagels are gone. Completely. Not even the packaging left. The daughter’s boyfriend, who has been sent downstairs in order to complete the bagel mission without the daughter having to rise from her bed, confirms the situation. The bagels are gone. We are mystified.

We consider likely suspects:

The boyfriend himself, unlike many chaps of his age, does not suffer from constant and devouring hunger that leads him to constantly devour all the food in the house including the bagels. Aside from which, incurring the scorn of youngest daughter by not producing the requested bagels by having eaten them is a terrifying prospect which a man of his sensibilities would not contemplate. So boyfriend is innocent. Of bagel theft anyway.

Could it be the physicist? Well, she does not really like onion bagels, but maybe she has been using them for obscure experiments. If it works for custard could it equally work for bagels? We cross-examine her. She denies that bagels or any other bready products are non-newtonian liquids and therefore do not interest her. She suggests that other non-newtonian liquids in the kitchen, ketchup and mayonnaise for example, may be of interest to physicists – but bagels phshaw!

Could the culprit be the beloved? Yet he too scorns bagels as a strange Jewish foodstuff that good Scotsmen like himself will not even consider actually exist. And if they do exist then only folk of a Jewish descent could possibly actually consume them. Like youngest daughter. But she is the bagel-less victim in all of this.

So, maybe it was me. I like onion bagels and am also of Jewish descent and I know where the bagels are kept. This sounds pretty likely. It must have been me. Yet, despite being menopausal, forgetful, and slightly irrational surely I would remember eating three packets of bagels. And I do not. At all. Even remember eating one. I declare myself innocent.

This leaves only the cat. He fulfils no criteria whatsoever. He is not Jewish, nor does he like bagels, nor does he experiment (much) on foodstuffs. Nevertheless we do question him. He vehemently denies any knowledge of bagels and simply asks that, if we are not busy, could we feed him again. We are busy.

All that is left to do is examine the scene of the crime. The fridge. The empty fridge. The bagelless fridge. It makes a slight belching noise. Enough to give it away. The obvious answer comes to us. The fridge has eaten the bagels.