It’s been a bad run for Boston lately. The tunnel collapse, the botched detours, the political infighting and the ever-increasing number of bad bolts, all this bum news can really get a person down. Unless, like 76-year old Mark Smith (former owner of Finagle-A-Bagel), you're kept up! up! up! by a $200/day coke habit. Although his addiction reportedly decimated his profits from the sale of his company, he used some of the remaining funds to send his dealers on vacation after finally paying off his debt. What could be more surreal than an elderly bagel maven snorting his worth in blow? Try this: said dealers were Andrew and Winifred Schlehuber, a 69-year-old couple who kept their West Roxbury house crammed to the rafters with cocaine. According to the article in today’s Herald, Smith was housesitting for the pair in return for a discount on his daily dose (no word on whether $200 represents the gross or the net,) when the police barged in and raided the joint, confiscating the drugs and arresting the former 
tycoon. While this incident is neither good (at least for Smith and the Schlehubers,) nor recent (the housesitting took place in 2000, the Schelhuber hearing was the catalyst for the article), it’s the kind of story that can really make you take a step back and ponder the larger issues. Like: is that really flour on the bottom of your salt bagel?
story via Universal Hub, bagel shot via Flickr user Ayustety
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Equally high on the absurd-o-meter, is that this all happened on LaGrange Street in West Roxbury, about as unlikely a locale for a story involving alleged coke-snorting bagel mavens as you could dream up (although, hmm, is it worth noting that the Dedham Finagle-a-Bagel moved to West Roxbury a couple years ago?).
I used to work for Mr. Smith back in the day. Are you sure the age is correct? I'd say he'd be in his 50s now. BTW, he is a nice guy. Sorry to hear about his drub problem.