Subway angst

Last night, I had the longest Subway experience ever. Workaholic and I were hungry, but I didn’t want the grease of Redamaks, and he did, so I am quite sure that he will never let me forget this. We decide to stop at the Subway in Benton Harbor, about a block or two from Lake Michigan. It was probably close to 9 at night, but there really is just no excuse.

When we pulled up, there were already 3 boys walking in ahead of us, and 2 in there, already eating. The 3 boys got 4 sandwiches. Which took 25 minutes to make. In the 25 minutes I had to wait, I spent my time observing said boys. They were teenagers, and rich. (when the first one got his sandwich after 5 minutes and left, it was in a nice black Cadillac CTS) They were each wearing an item of plaid. One was a shirt, the other shorts, the third was wearing plaid shoes, and the fourth, I have to give him credit, it took me a while to figure it out, but his wallet was plaid. Must not have wanted to conform too much. They were not rowdy, or impolite, but I decided that I didn’t like them, and neither did Workaholic. We were justified. (which, BTW, is because while Slow Boy, my name for the guy behind the counter, was in the middle of making my sandwich, plaid shoe boy decided that he wanted a cup for a Coke. Slow Boy panicked for a moment before telling plaid shoe boy that he’d have to wait, and pay, for the cup which was subsequently stolen from behind the counter. Hey, kid! You had your chance!! Be thirsty!) I almost went off on him, but I was too focused on watching Slow Boy putting lettuce on my sandwich.

Slow Boy was the only one working, (as evidenced by the complete lack of sandwich making supplies and the trash can that was sitting out in the middle of the restaurant) and I think (hope) he was new. It took him a minute and a half to put on the plastic gloves. He then spoke very softly asking me what I assumed was, what kind of sandwich could he get me? No, that wasn’t it, because when I did tell him my order, he just stared at me, and then said, “Oh, you want wheat bread?” Yes, with turkey (which had to be repeated twice, because apparently, his short term memory was so short, he forgot what I wanted between the time he turned around and got the bread, and set it on the table) and American cheese. “And what kind of cheese would you like?” Seriously??? I just said American cheese twice, like, 45 seconds ago!! (because it took him that long to put the turkey on the bread. Which was longer than 6 inches, and is that OK??) I only get two things on my sandwich, and so that took about 2 minutes. Of course, there was the 10 second pause when I asked for black pepper, and he reached for the black olives, hesitated, and looked panicky at me, (no, I did not help him, he needs to figure out on him own that black olives are not peppers), and finally started looking for the jar of pepper. Shake, pause, shake, pause. “Is that enough?” Yes, because when I asked for lots of black pepper, I meant 2 half hearted shakes. Keep shaking darling! And don’t get me started on the process of paying. He only knew how to make change because the computer told him what to give me.

Thirty-five minutes and lite mayo later, (since they were out of regular mayo), we got out of there. At least Workaholic and I had a nice 15 minute long discussion on the car ride home about how I am such a good sandwich artist and why we didn’t like the teenage boys.