With finals approaching and important work piling up, nothing’s forgotten faster than this poor, neglected column of mine. While I’ve never boasted of the quality of Masticating In Public, I still feel it necessary to pre-emptively beg forgiveness for the tripe to follow.

Mill Street Bagels operates two locations near campus. According to at least one self-described “Mill Street whore,” the operation on 5th Avenue is head and shoulders above the one at 3296 North High Street.

Unfortunately for the people at Mill Street Bagels, the latter establishment is the one we’ll be examining today.

My Co-masticators and I walked in and were nearly the only ones present. I mistakenly assumed that we’d quickly be able to put in our order, dine and get back to our group project. After watching the pedantic pace of the employees, I’m certain that nothing short of a loaded gun could convince them to throw a sandwich together in less than 10 minutes. So help me God, if I can’t get my ham, turkey and roast beef bagel quickly and conveniently, the terrorists have already won.

When we were finally presented with our overdue eats, I was miffed to note that our chips were forgotten. It’s not as if our orders were overly complex or the climate was at all busy. Perhaps we were supposed to get them ourselves, which is what I ended up doing. Reaching behind the counter to grab them made me feel like a thief, regardless.

I walked back to my order after making the heist and reached for my latté, and found it disappointingly lukewarm. Just how do these people stay in business? I don’t care how high you are when you show up to work – when you hand someone a cup of coffee and it feels cold, there’s something wrong. If single-celled organisms can sense a temperature difference, I’d hope the employees of Mill Street could do likewise. Actually, with that in mind, I just might be setting the bar too high.

Co-masticator Doug ordered the Chicken Cordon Bleu and wrote, “While this sandwich is advertised as ‘served hot’ mine was at room temperature. I’m still waiting for an explanation for the unknown liquid that steadily dripped from the sandwich when I picked it up.”

My knowledge of the ancient art of sandwichestry may not be encyclopedic, but I know enough to say something’s amiss behind Mill Street’s sandwich counter.

My Triple Decker was a barely-navigable pile of mediocrity. The bagel was nice and chewy, but the rest of the sandwich resembled something I could’ve thrown together myself. It’s not that it wasn’t decent; it was just too much lunch meat to handle with any semblance of human dignity.

Co-masticator Ben tried a salad and commented, “I enjoy the ability to choose my salad ingredients instead of a pre-made alternative. The salads here are huge, cheap and fresh. I ordered a bagel here as an afterthought, because I always come for the greens. The bagel was a bit old, but after all, it was 6 p.m.”

He went on to say, “The high school students working the Fifth Avenue location have their (expletive) together, which is more than the reefered-up college students working this place can say.”

As far as the atmosphere is concerned, I was pleased to see how clean and orderly things were. Evidently things stay neat longer without pesky customers walking in and tramping dirt around. Smoking is prohibited and the store is handicap-accessible.

In closing, if you’re in the mood for a deli sandwich and insist on Mill Street, I suggest trying the Fifth Avenue location if at all possible. Good luck to all on their upcoming finals and Merry Christmas/Chanukah-/Kwanzaa.

Our thoughts and prayers here at Masticating In Public go out to Steve Bellissari. After all, by their senior year who hasn’t driven around campus at twice the legal blood-alcohol limit? The Masticator can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].