A Tale of Two Sandwiches

Ok, so I went to Quizno's on Wednesday. It's been a while since the
last time I've been there, so I had to think a little bit about what I
wanted to get. I stood there for maybe 2 or 3 minutes deliberating,
and I finally settled on the Ranch Swiss Turkey, and gave my order to
the guy behind the counter. The Quizno's is set up so that you follow
your sandwich. There's a certain order behind the whole process. You
start at one end, where they take your order, cut your bread and put
stuff like mayo on it... then you shift over a little to the next stop
where you choose what vegetables you want, and then they put it on a
conveyer belt which rolls into an oven. (mmm, toasty!) As it goes
through the oven, you mull over your choices of chips, drinks, etc,
which you should have all picked out by the time your sandwich comes
out the other end of the oven. They wrap the sandwich up and then it
goes to the cashier, where you pay, and by this time you've slowly
drifted over to that side. So the food should come out the same order
as it's ordered, right? A little sandwich factory. There's no
parallel processing here. It's all serial!

So a small disruption in the well-oiled machine happened when a girl
jumped in the line between me and the person who ordered ahead of me.
Little did I know the chain of events it would set off. At first I
glanced at her, giving her that look, hey, what do you think you're
doing?... don't you know there's a system here?...
...ok, fine, not really. I looked at her to check out her butt. but I was thinking
those other things, too. I quickly forgave her, though, not because
her butt was anything special, but because she just ordered a soup and
a salad: no sandwich. That's fine. I'm sure the workers at Quizno's
can handle this sort of situation. So of course she pays in front of
me, so I have to linger a little bit away from the cashier. So I'm
standing there waiting for my sandwich, when this guy runs up to the
cashier, and asks, "Is that turkey? Yeah? Great!" and takes it. What
the? Wait. Was he in front of the guy in front of me? I can't
remember... anyway. This guy is quick. As the realization that this
guy just swooped in and took my sandwich sets in, he's already at a
table, chomping away. Well, fine. I guess he must have just ordered
the same sandwich as me. And yes, I do think now that this guy was not just behind me, but behind two other people who
were behind me as well! I guess he was really hungry... and maybe he
took a cue from not-so-hot-butt girl that it's ok to just ignore the
structure set up in the Quizno's sandwich assembly line and just jump
in and grab a sandwich if it's the same one that you ordered, though
he should have known he wasn't exempt from the rule because 1. he
ordered a sandwich and 2. he's not a hot chick with a nice butt.
(everyone knows hot chicks with nice butts are exempt from all rules)
Ah well... it's too late now.... Besides, I hate stirring up a
commotion over something so small and stupid. I'll just wait two more
minutes and take his sandwich, since he ordered the same thing, right? no big
deal... His sandwich comes out, "oven roasted turkey?" Sinking
feeling. Ahhhhh, maaaaaan! Nobody claims it. I walk up to the
counter slowly and say, "I wanted Ranch Swiss Turkey." Some confusion
behind the counter. Should I just eat the regular turkey? I should
just take it, huh?

Wait.

No.

It's not so much that I love Ranch Swiss Turkey. I've never even had
it before. It's just a stupid sandwich....

But...
I'd made a deliberate decision earlier.
I had looked over the menu, and decided, "I want the Ranch Swiss
Turkey sandwich." If I didn't care what kind of sandwich I got, as
long as I just got a freakin sandwich in my mouth, like
sandwich-stealer-man, then instead of looking at the menu before
ordering, I should have just turned around, and asked the guy 3 spots
behind me, "hey, what do I want to eat?" and then he would have told
me, "you want an oven roasted turkey sandwich." No... I must have my
Ranch Swiss Turkey sandwich. It's a matter of principle. A funny
thing about principles. They suddenly become so much more real, or
matter to you so much more than you thought they did, when 1. you're
at the short end of the deal. and 2. especially when it concerns food,
or a girl, or sleep. Down to the most primal motivating forces in
life.
"Is that a Ranch Swiss Turkey sandwich?"
"No, it's oven roasted turkey"
"I ordered a Ranch Swiss Turkey."
"Oh. Ok..." The guy quickly opens up the sandwich to double check
what it is. I'm thinking, well, it can't be hard to fix, anyway. Just
add whatever. Ranch sauce, right? and what, Swiss cheese? and charge
me like an extra buck more. What's the problem? Just do it. But in a
little while, the guy comes back, and says, "the Ranch Swiss Turkey
sandwich is like the oven roasted turkey sandwich, except it has
sauce, and red onions.... blah blah blah... are you sure you want
Ranch Swiss? Is that what you want?"
"yeah, I want the Ranch Swiss..."
"you want the red onions?"
I gave him a blank look. "I ordered the Ranch Swiss Turkey Sandwich.
That's what I want. Can I have that, please?" Now at this point, the
guy behind the counter is breaking a higher protocol. I understand
where he's coming from. He's sure that he got the order right. Which
he did. But I'm not going to sit there and explain to him the whole
story. It's not my responsibility to make sure other people get what
they order. I just want my Ranch Swiss Turkey sandwich. And it doesn't
matter, anyway. I told him what I should be getting, he should just do
it. Give the customer what he wants. Don't come back and double check
after he's already corrected the order. And so now I'm pretty irked,
over a stupid sandwich. And I feel like I'm being an ahole, which I
hate. I think that usually I'm a pretty unemotional guy. I don't get
mad at other drivers on the road and stuff... It's a funny thing about
emotions. They suddenly come out of nowhere and grow really quick
when 1. you're at the short end of a deal. or 2. it involves food, a
girl, or sleep. okay fine, maybe not sleep, but it sounded funny.
Actually I know some people get really mad when you wake them up when
they didn't want to be woken. An unfortunate (well, I guess sometimes
fortunate, it depends on the situation) result is that sometimes it
makes you do things you normally wouldn't do. I actually walked over
to the grabby-sandwich-hands guy, and asked him (maybe a little louder
than necessary) "did you order a oven roasted turkey sandwich? they
got an oven roasted turkey sandwich there"
Mr. Guilty looks up at me, and says something like, "no wonder it came
out so fast!" and gives an embarrassed, apologetic laugh.
My only response is a loud, "yeah..." and I go sit down with my
friends to wait for my sandwich. My friend says to me, "dude, give it
a rest..."
"...you want some of my sandwich?"
"No. I want a Ranch. Swiss. Turkey. Sandwich," I declared. The guy
at the other table heard me, for sure. Literally 30 seconds later, my
sandwich is ready. I pick it up, (the guy behind the counter
apologizes profusely, and I give him a cheerful "don't worry about
it!") and when I turn around, the sandwich speedster is already gone.
Wow. If he was in a hurry before, he really took it up a notch after
my comment. Ah man, now I felt like a real ahole. The guy must have
just crammed the sandwich down his throat and dashed out to get out of
that small, uncomfortable dining area made suddenly smaller and quite
unpleasant by my unpleasantries. What if he gets indigestion or
something later because he ate so fast? Aahh... man. Stupid, stupid,
stupid.
I start eating my sandwich. It's just a sandwich. Nothing marvelous
or anything. A sandwich...

About halfway through, I realize there's no cheese in it.

Cafeteria food

We've all been disappointed by a cafeteria at one time or another. On Monday, the cafeteria at work disappointed me yet again, and this time I gotta say something.
I know I shouldn't complain. It's very convenient and all. When I joined the company, we had just moved to a new building, and so the cafeteria was still being built. I was kind of excited about having the cafeteria, mainly because of the convenience aspect, but also because of the social aspect it would bring.
They had a contest to name the cafe... I submitted two brilliant entries... which lost out to Baybreeze Cafe. Oh c'mon.... That was the first let down.
As days went by, I realized people don't really socialize in dining area. They all just take their food to their desks. Glumly, I learned to do the same.
Once, they put on the menu "Free pastry when you buy a Starbucks coffee" (there's an internal webpage that they post the menu on) It was new, and the people that worked there didn't know what I was talking about, and so I had a hard time getting my pastry. Other people were looking at me like I was an ahole, wondering why I was trying to get a free pastry. :'(
Every Tuesday is Indian food day. Every Thursday is Mexican food day. Every Friday is grill day. At first I thought it was genius. I even started to like Indian food. But I've been let down by the Mexican food a few too many times, I've gone back to not liking Indian food, and whoever thought you could get tired of burgers. I'm only mildly interested now on Mondays and Wednesdays, which are wildcards. Usually it's like, pasta tho, which I like, but at Baybreeze cafe,... eh... it's whatevers.
Well, this week on Monday morning I checked the menu, and "Country-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob" piqued my interest. Though disappointed time and again by the cafeteria, I felt a glimmer of hope. Once in a while they managed to serve up a gem. Maybe this would be one of those days. I remember when I first started buying food in the cafeteria, I thought they served a lot of food, and the price was decent. (about 5.00-6.50) But as the weeks went by, I started to think that they were serving smaller amounts. It's not just my appetite growing. I think they really are. Like, they would fill up the to-go boxes with food, but this Monday, my box was half-empty. (That's right, I can't say it was half-full) This is something I didn't really get. Why are they being stingy with the food? Do the workers have to buy the food with their own pay?? Maybe they're genuinely concerned about my caloric intake. I mean, it's not even subtle... it's blatantly obvious!! I swear when they hand me my food, and I look at them and give them the quizzical eyebrow raise, they gotta know what I'm thinking... they just close the box quickly and slide it over to me sheepishly. At least use smaller to-go boxes so it doesn't look so bad!! Anyway. So now I'm thinking, it's gonna be hard to enjoy this. because I just feel ripped off now. I figure I'll try to make the best of it by splashing Tabasco over the chicken... I look at it... it looks so sad. The chicken is so small. There was a breast piece that looked like it was from an anorexic chicken. And two wing pieces, that were also very small. Like the chicken was a dwarf or something. Who knows. Maybe the cafeteria got a great deal on sparrows and don't have any qualms misleading me telling me it's chicken. I looked at it again... and reconsidered.... maybe this is a normal amount of food, and I just eat too much. Maybe the box is just huge and it's an optical illusion. It does look like at least they gave me a lot of mashed potatoes.... I finished my food in 13 minutes. I'm not a fast eater. It really was as little as I thought it was. And I still felt hungry. Boo.