Charging for Butter

When you eat a bagel, do you eat it plain – no butter, no cream cheese, no nothing?

Wouldn't that be like eating a potato plain? Who does that?

So I was flabbergasted when given the total – $1.79 – for my bagel with butter at Dunkin' Donuts the other day.

"Shut UP!" I exclaimed.

Nowhere on the sign above the counter does it say, "bagel with butter," $1.79. It says, "bagel, $1.19," and "bagel with cream cheese, $2.19."

In my decades of life, I always thought the butter was just automatically included with the bagel. Butter goes with bagels like dressing goes with salad, like ketchup goes with french fries. It's inseparable. Nobody eats a bagel plain!

As soon as I arrived at my desk at work after this shocking experience at Dunkin' Donuts, I shot off an email to Dunkin' Donuts headquarters.

The next day, I got a call from the One City Center franchise owner, "Tiffany." She said that all Dunkin' Donutses charge extra for butter, and that if I hadn't paid extra all my life, then I had been chronically undercharged.

What the charge pays for is the plastic knife and the butter, she said. And the toaster energy, if the bagel is toasted.

I still couldn't believe that Dunkin' Donuts had been charging me for butter all my life and I never noticed it. I thought "Tiff" was wrong.

So on my way to work, I stopped at a different Dunkin' Donuts.

At the drive-up, I got the standard "How can I help you?"

I asked for a plain bagel, which at this Dunkin' Donuts was priced at $1.09, and got the standard, "Would you like that toasted?"

"Is it going to cost me?" I asked.

"No," the voice said.

"What if I want butter? Is that going to cost me?" I asked.

After a pause, the voice said, "Yes, that would be $1.92."

Wow! 83 cents for butter!

I drove off, bagel-less, and headed to the next Dunkin' Donuts, where the butter similarly beefed up the bagel price.

Well, I guess Tiffany wasn't just yanking my chain. But I wasn't done yet.

For comparison's sake, I made a special trip to the Tim Horton's near the Maine Mall. Here the base price for a bagel was 99 cents. To my delight, there was no extra charge for knife, butter or toasting.

Their coffee isn't as good, but it's worth the money saved on butter.

Dunkin' Donuts should be ashamed of itself.