For someone with as thoroughly Southern an upbringing as I had, I have a remarkably wide-ranging taste in foodstuffs. Granted, some of this can be attributed to my childhood; one of my aunts is Thai, my dad was a gourmet cook, my father (no, not the same person; my father couldn't cook to save his life) would just about commit larceny for good Chinese and Greek cuisine (he would buy an entire tray of homemade baklava at the annual Greek festival), Granddad got me hooked on lychees and pine nuts ...basically, food is the one aspect of my young life that was culturally broad, relatively speaking. So it should come as no surprise that I like things like good bagels and curry as much as I do grits and boiled peanuts.

Anyway, the local bagel shop sent me an e-mail coupon for a special that's guaranteed to keep me in boiled baked bread for a couple of weeks; buy a baker's dozen, get a half-dozen free, and I took them up on it earlier today.

On Talk Like A Pirate Day, natch.

I got to chatting with one of the staff, and mentioned what day it was. Soon, the entire store was ringing with "avast"s and "yarrrr"s. However, they hadn't gotten one of those coupons before this afternoon, and soon the manager was roped in.

"Today be 'Talk Like a Pirate Day'", I said to the rather confused looking woman, "and I be plunderin' yer store with a coupon!"

She took the amusement in stride, and confirmed that the e-mail was valid. The staff filled up two boxes with baked goods, and I was on my merry way. When I got back to the house and started unpacking, though, I found out that I had caused a minor distraction, to the tune of two extra bagels.

Now, normally, I would feel as though I should go back tomorrow, 'fess up, and pay for the extras. Given the day, though, I'm tempted to just sum it up thusly:

"Pirate."