Eat Fresh

November 23, 2004

subwaysandwich.jpgAfter work the other day I was feel­ing a bit hun­gry. Lately I’ve been skip­ping out on lunch and break­fast because either I’m too engrossed in what­ever project I’m work­ing on or I for­get to bring the packed lunch (like this morn­ing for instance).

As I’m dri­ving down the road a thought comes to mind, “Wow, I haven’t been to Palermo’s Sub Shop in a few months. Won­der how my Sub mak­ing bud­dies are doing.” I pull up in the park­ing lot and enter the sub place and order the usual; a meat­ball sub with sliced mozzerella on top. After order­ing I casu­ally walk over and get a drink from the soda foun­tain and wait patiently while the “Sub Artist” does his thing.

Even­tu­ally the guy comes over with two sand­wiches? I was in a panic, it was as if all the air in my lungs had been sucked out of me. Why, why, two sand­wiches? That’s when I real­ized, he split the two halves. This is where this sub story gets weird.

The guy takes my credit card, slips it through what I call the “credit crack” and it takes about 15 years to autho­rize the trans­ac­tion. In the mean time we chat about life and even­tu­ally he real­izes the receipt machine has no power. I let out a laugh that exudes a mix­ture of “how funny” and “Dude, what is your prob­lem?” and finally it works.

He hands me the receipt to sign and in an awk­ward moment says, “Well, it’s been great hang­ing out with you man.” Like I said, awk­ward to say the least and yet at one point I think I wanted to give him a hug, thank him for mak­ing my sub and tip him for the ser­vice. In the end I decided not to, think­ing it might have been going against the Sub Mak­ers union.

Some­day, when all of the sub shop artists are replaced by sub-making robots I’ll miss these kinds of moments. 

18 comments

You should always hug (manly-type hug) a good sand­wich man. They are a rare breed.

I just real­ized I hadn’t had a meat­ball sub in a long time. Hello, lunch!

by Max on November 23, 2004 at 11:45 am. Reply #

Credit crack”.… heh, I couldn’t have said it bet­ter. ;)

That receipt machine episode should qual­ify for a Homer Simp­son “D’oh” Award, or some­thing like that.

by beto on November 23, 2004 at 12:33 pm. Reply #

Yep, there def­i­nitely is much to be said about some­one who actu­ally is mak­ing you a sand­wich and not just slap­ping meat, cheese, and veg­gies in between two slabs of bread while they are think­ing to them­selves “Dude, why did I drink so much last night” or “Dude, I can’t wait to smoke that next bowl on my break”. Any ideas to the chain sub shop I am refer­ring to? Yeah, you’ve been to one.

by Chad on November 23, 2004 at 2:05 pm. Reply #

Chad: Yeah, fast food subs is more like it.

by kartooner on November 23, 2004 at 2:46 pm. Reply #

It seems like the peo­ple at sub shops (real sub shops) are always crazy char­ac­ters. Austin has a lot of peo­ple liv­ing what might be described as a bohemian lifestyle, and they all work at Thun­der­cloud Subs. They can start a dis­cus­sion about the cra­zi­est stuff you have ever heard. I once had a fif­teen minute con­ver­sa­tion about some myth­i­cal land named Arta­sia, where artists live in peace and harmony.

On a side note, the girl­friend seems to think these peo­ple are dirty…haha. She’s fond of singing the com­mer­cial jin­gle for Thun­der­cloud, and replac­ing “subs” with “sucks”. Damn women.

by Greg on November 23, 2004 at 4:03 pm. Reply #

I don’t know what kind of crack you’re smok­ing, but sand­wiches are so 1995. Try a chicken wrap or a gyro. Maybe then you won’t have issues with credit-cards since chicken wrap places have the new hi-tech machines and gryo places only take cash.

by Pauly D on November 23, 2004 at 5:34 pm. Reply #

Pauly: If I’m hun­gry for a chicken wrap I don’t go for just any ordi­nary wrap, no, rather I need it Buffalo-style with a teaspoon-sized dol­lip of blue cheese dress­ing on top (the only time I’ll eat blue cheese).

By the way, I might have to pur­chase your book Paul. I love it when peo­ple prod For­tune 500 com­pa­nies with non­sen­si­cal questions.

by kartooner on November 23, 2004 at 6:02 pm. Reply #

I’d pass on the wrap, and get a bur­rito.

by Greg on November 23, 2004 at 6:33 pm. Reply #

Well, I def­i­nitely won’t com­plain if you buy my book.

But I will com­plain if I can’t fig­ure out how to have a cool icon like every­one else seems to have in this thread.

by Pauly D on November 23, 2004 at 7:06 pm. Reply #

Paul, all you need to do is upload your icon at Gra­vatar and set up an account. Use the same email you’ve used on other sites (or blogs) and viola, your cho­sen icon will appear.

by kartooner on November 23, 2004 at 10:10 pm. Reply #

Oh, sand­wiches, well made, are truly great.
I love them.

by Indranil on November 24, 2004 at 3:43 am. Reply #

See­ing as though the con­ver­sa­tion has led itself to sand­wiches, I won­der, what is your favorite sandwich?

I’ll start by say­ing that my favorite sand­wich is none other than a Philly Cheeses­teak and for a time it was Roast­beef with Au Jus. I can remem­ber on vaca­tions with my fam­ily I’d order the same thing every night it seemed and on one par­tic­u­lar trip I was order­ing only Roast Beef Sand­wiches. The fol­low­ing year I ordered only Grilled Cheese. Yeah, I was an odd kid when I look back at my childhood.

by kartooner on November 24, 2004 at 9:31 am. Reply #

There’s a great lit­tle place here in Omaha — not sure if it is a chain or what — called The Buf­falo Com­pany. They make a hot sub called the Royal, which is toasted bread, dijon mus­tard, oil, vine­gar, onions, let­tuce, ital­ian sausage, bacon, and capi­cola. Oh man, the pork-on-pork action will damn near kill you, but it is good stuff.

by Max on November 24, 2004 at 12:59 pm. Reply #

Hehe… “credit crack.”

And aww man… that guy sounds lonely or some­thing. You should have given him the hug! :)

by Seth Thomas Rasmussen on November 24, 2004 at 3:05 pm. Reply #

I’m not that big into sand­wiches unless it’s drip­ping with steak and cheese (yes, I know Sub­way has some­thing like this). How­ever, I pre­fer a place by me called Chipo­tle (they may be national). The chipotle-artists(?) make the biggest fat­test bur­ri­tos right in front of you with your choice of fix­ings. Mmmm mmmm good.

by chopsocky on November 25, 2004 at 11:34 am. Reply #

Mark: I know just what you mean, Chip­tole are awe­some. When­ever my wife and I vaca­tion in Cal­i­for­nia we always make time to stop there with our friends. When we moved to New York two years ago I was sad­dened by the fact that Chip­tole was nowhere to be found in our area.

Chip­tole bur­ri­tos are so bulky that they tend to crum­ble on you after the first bite.

by kartooner on November 25, 2004 at 12:12 pm. Reply #

Man oh man. There is noth­ing bet­ter to me than a turkey sand­wich. Toast me up some wheat bread, throw some cheese on it, and some fresh deli turkey, and I’m done for.

by Fernando Dunn II on November 26, 2004 at 10:51 pm. Reply #

I pre­fer Sub­way, since they don’t make sand­whiches as big as the one you pic­tured. Unless that’s a 12 inch next to a 6 inch.

by CarLBanks on November 30, 2004 at 4:35 pm. Reply #

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