Raisin Bagel.
Oh poor Raisin Bagel.
You go into the box with the other 11 bagels of various design, knowing deep in your raisin diversity that you deserve not to enjoy their company.
Plain Bagel mocks your fruity composition.
Asiago Bagel scoffs at your stickiness.
Garlic bagel wonders who even thought you up in the first place and thus, questions your right to be a bagel.
Even the dental-damning and seldom-selected Poppy Seed Bagel finds you somewhat odd and disturbing.
You always knew, from that first day you rolled out from under the baker's sticky fingers, that you were different.
Too awkward for cream cheese, too sweet for butter.
You always knew you would be a hard-sell.
You knew the day would never come that someone would stroll up to the bagel counter and ask for a dozen Raisin Bagels.
You always knew you were an afterthought.
Filler.
An extra.
Something to fill up the box on the bottom while the "serious" bagels sat up top, enjoying their popularity while never once hiding their disdain for you. You were the food equivelant of a football lineman. Sure, you wear the uniform and you play in the game, but no one ever really notices. Raisin Cinnamon and Apple Walnut were to become synomomous with "also ran."
The stiff shirts in Marketing decide to throw together an "Everything Bagel". Garlic, cheese, wheat bran, onion, all of it. No raisins. Damn them. Damn them to Hell!
Poor, poor Raisin Bagel.
You watch as slowly the other bagels get picked out before you. Hands reach in and move you, looking for any other bagel besides your sticky sweet damn self. As the day goes on, you become more and more stale, less and less attractive to all but the most morbidly obese sugar/carb addict.
Finally, it is only you and half of an Oat Bran Bagel left in the box. You and half of a dry, stale gluten and fiber rich bagel that first gained popularity in the late 1980's, about the time "Flock of Seagulls" and "Depech Mode" were cool.
Two hours after lunch, and some quick energy needing A-hole reaches in, grabs you, rips a small piece of you off, only to spit it back out and then drop your now mutilated body down on top of your bran-filled friend.
Soon, you no longer hear the voices in the background or the sound of approaching footsteps.
The lights go out for a while. No one, it seems, is going to pick you. A mix of sadness and relief fill your raisiny soul.
It take until at at least midnight and then some dirty Mexican cleaning woman peers in, shrugs, and eats almost the last half of you that's left before tossing your remains in that special spot of her trash cart to nibble on as the night drones on. This has become your fate.
Raisin Bagel.
How little we knew ye.