Update: Lunch

I was sluggish getting out of bed this morning, so I didn't have time to pack today's lunch. My fallback plan for days like this is to get a simple turkey sub at Subway.

I can't go back to the one around the corner from my office. I don't care for the smell of the bread.

Yep. My first job was as a Subway Sandwich Artist, so 1) I know how the bread should smell; and 2) I know how to build a proper sub.

Let me digress a little here to discuss how Subway's quality has waned since I worked there - gulp - 10 years ago.

1. Why all the bread options? It just hurts profitability by upping the inventory costs. And everybody just gets white or wheat anyway. Guess what? I'm wheat.



2. We did the U-Gouge. Remember when the top of the bread was actually separated from the bottom? I miss those days. Now they cut the bread like they're gonna put hot dogs in there. It comes down to this: a sandwich is made from 2 pieces of bread; when I eat it, there should be a bottom and a top. I don't want to maneuver my sub to keep all the contents inside. If I wanted to work that hard, I would have went for tacos.



3. The sandwich used to be built from the bottom, up. Now they put the meat and cheese on the top half of the bread, and the veggies on the bottom. What the heck? They want to put the sauce on before the veggies, too! I don't want to eat dry lettuce! And I don't want the meat to slide around over the top of those veggies when I bite into it. It's unstable. When they're making mine, I order them to put the meat and cheese on the bottom half, the veggies and sauce on top of that...and they act like it's the craziest thing they ever heard.

Paulie: "Meat underneath the veggies? Are you serious, lady? Cuz' I can't reverse it once I do it. Hey Kwan, get in here! This bird wants me to put the meat on the other side of the bread!"

Kwan: "Say what?"

Paulie: "I said, she wants the meat on the other side of the bread!"

Kwan: "On the outside???"

Paulie: "Nah, she wants the meat on the 'bottom' half of the bread."

Kwan: "You mean the side that's facing her, right?"

Paulie: "Nah, the side that's facing me."

Kwan: "Can you even do that?"

Paulie: "I dunno, but I'm gonna try."

Kwan: "I gotta see this!"

Meanwhile, the other customers start to gather near. A couple of cabbie-capped old guys in the back of the place stop playing chess to come over see what the commotion's about. A little boy in suspenders who had been trying to scam dimes from customers so he could buy a cookie runs to
the door and yells to the kids playing marbles on the street - "Hey Chuckie, Carl, Fist-Lips! You guys gotta see this! They're gonna put the meat on the bottom of this broad's hero sandwich!"

Bottom line: You always put the hamburger first on the hamburger bun, right? Subs aren't any different. Now gimme my Dagwood...tootsweet!

Digression complete.

But this bread just smelled weird. Like old freezer burn mixed with curry and cardboard. Not pleasant.

So there's that,

Laura