Bagel with a schmear of whale

For a number of years my daily morning routine includes stopping at a deli near my office in Manhattan for coffee and a bagel. The deli is a typical short-order city eatery where they offer every type of food, with numerous counters, salad station, and hot buffet. Pretty good deli by all standards. Plus, they have fantastic coffee and that’s why I go – I refuse to drink the burnt, bitter, awful-tasting Starbucks coffee because of all the reasons mentioned and because I’m still convinced that humanity has had the hat pulled over the eyes and simply go to Starbucks because of over-hype and elitist pop-culture propaganda pushed and exploited by Starbucks. It’s just not good coffee, period. And it’s ridiculously overpriced – it’s stained water! It shouldn’t cost that much!

Anyway, while I was waiting for my bagel to be toasted (that’s what she said), I noticed a confusing sign on the wall near the counter:

As you’ll notice the sign indicates that they have lox available. If you’re a customer that is not familiar with lox, then the sign has a qualifier, “(salmon)”, which would help IF they didn’t show a picture of a whale diving into the water. I can only imagine a confused non-English-speaking tourist wondering if the establishment serves whale.

Nothing like a little bagel with cream cheese and whale meat.