Floor bagels

You know: "everything" bagels, with onion flecks and poppy and sesame seeds and kosher salt and what have you, as if they had been rolled across the bakery linoleum before ending up in your tissue-paper square? A little bit of this, a little bit of that, today.

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Yesterday morning, coffee cart at work: the guy in front of me ordered a beverage with FIVE shots of espresso. FIVE! Would you like a knife and fork with that? The barista, understandably anxious, made him sample it before she'd let him leave; what would she have done if his head had blown off right there? He approved the taste of this concoction...and then asked her to top it off with a swirly pile of chocolate-flavored whipped cream, drizzled with caramel syrup. "That looks like dog poo," his colleague declared frankly.

"I'm waiting for the vein to pop out on your forehead," I said. I'd developed a slight tremor just standing next to the guy. I like my caffeine as much as the next Queen City native, but holy crap, right?

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Apparently Science has documented the intersection of spatial relations and colorful, candy-coated snackery: a new study shows that identical spheroid shapes--namely, M&Ms--can be packed more tightly together than ordinary spheres. Ellipsoids (would those be...peanut M&Ms? or are those so random as to introduce, like, chaos theory?) can be crammed together to reach an even greater maximum density. I thought about this a lot today as I packed a substantial number of Valentine-hued chocolate spheroids into my own maw at the office. Mmmm, volume displacement.

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