The Terror of the Untoasted Sub

It's not often that I get to blog about fast food experiences (actually, it's a first) but my Quizno's experience from yesterday wasn't singular which makes it even funnier to me now.

First, let me preface this by saying that I have a total hang-up about eating in public. Watching (and hearing sometimes, yuck) the multitudes of bad table manners, messy eaters, and "see-food" enthusiasts totally kills my appetite, so far be it from me to join the messy masses and get crumbs on my face while enjoying my small classic italian on white. Those "Mmm, mmm, toasty" subs fall apart at every bite leaving it's sated consumer with crumbles all over the place.

So, to solve this problem I always order an (inserted dramatic tension building music here) untoasted sub. When doing this in an establishment famous for its toasted subs I apparently throw a wrench into the machine and cause the entire line to break down into pandemonium. This is how it usually goes:

I innocently approach the counter and place my order (small untoasted italian) causing the prep station man's eyes to widen in fear. "Untoasted? Are you sure?" After assuring him that I am indeed strong enough to handle this decision he turns to another co-worker for support and begins piling the soft bread with the care of a nuclear technician handling an explosive device. I watch his obvious internal turmoil while he walks past the oven without passing the sub through and hands it to the next man on the line for fresh veggies. Now the Veggie Man looks at the Meat Man like he's an idiot and heads toward the front of the oven to toast the sub. Meat Man sees this and stops him behind the oven and in hushed tones quickly discuss my unorthodox order and Veggie Man obligingly returns to his station with my still untoasted sub looking a bit shaken. I decide to give the poor guy a break and just get a little lettuce and vinegar and I even think about asking him to toast the pickles to make him feel better. My untoasted small classic italian is now a completed work of art and I follow Veggie Man to the register where he passes the sub to the cashier, making sure he knows it's an untoasted italian because that apparently makes all the difference in the price. Oh wait, no it doesn't.

And thus ends my reign of terror at Quizno's... until the next time. Same sub-time, same sub-channel.

Novel Excerpt - "Of War and Taters"

This excerpt is from my second novel, "Of War and Taters." It is a satire for young adults or the young at heart. Think of this town as Mayberry with a little bit of South Park thrown in for giggles. In this scene, Isabelle - Sheriff Stanley's slightly homicidal wife - is extending her reign of terror over the stray that wandered into her yard that morning.  

Not terribly far across town was a dog that was having second thoughts, or would be, if dogs could have second thoughts. They would have been big ones, too. Just this morning he’d been the king of his domain; he knew where the best trash could be found, he knew he could find cold water at the fountain in the park anytime he was thirsty, and he had the whole world to play in if he wanted it. All of that withstanding, it was a very good thing dogs have such a short memory because now Mr. Cuddle Face’s only concern in the world was with getting his new blue collar off before someone saw him wearing rhinestones.

“Oh, look at oo, Mr. Cuddle Face! What did ums do?” A new concern was firmly etched into the animal’s short term memory as the big loud face showed up again with, he was certain, some new horror for him. As it was, he’d managed to slip his back paw up underneath the collar and was now struggling to both extract his paw and push off his collar at the same time while rotating on his free legs. The result was something that resembled a dog losing a ferret fight on top of a tripod.

Isabelle leaned over the pup, pulled his paw from the offending collar and brought him up nose to nose with her. This, small dog owners everywhere should know, is far more terrifying for the average dog than one would imagine. Another positive deficiency here for Mr. Cuddle Face is the fact that he could not see color; if he could he’d have been rather more alarmed by the bright red lipstick puckered up at the end of his snout which matched the curly mass of red hair that kept tickling his ears.

Already today he’d been tossed into a bathtub and scrubbed no less than three times with a tropical bubble bath despite his howls and hopeless growls. The end product was that he now smelled less like a sewer and more like a trash bin behind a daiquiri bar. It was a marked improvement as far as Isabelle was concerned, but the only response it provoked from the dog was that his tail now smelled far more interesting than it used to when he chased it. After the baths he had been left in the bathroom floor a wet soppy mess while she ran out to find him the perfect leash and collar. On her return, Isabelle also had the unkind idea to use the blow-dryer and a comb to hurry things along in the drying department. That caused no small amount of uncustomary fluffiness to his coat. Then, as if the humiliation hadn’t been laid on thickly enough already, he’d been paraded around the street at the end of his shiny new leash and collar. He’d spent the entire time being mostly dragged as he was too busy gnawing at the leash attached to him to pay attention to unfamiliar commands like stay, heel, and don’t poo there.

Isabelle carried the cowed creature with her into the kitchen where she’d begun preparing Stanley’s dinner. She couldn’t stand meatloaf, but she knew he was expecting to come home and find his traditional Tuesday meatloaf with his favorite dish of green bean casserole next to it. She set Mr. Cuddle Face down in the corner of the kitchen nearest the door where she’d already placed his food dishes. Fortunately for him, the speed with which Isabelle had managed to get personalized dishes with his new name on them was a miracle that was lost to Mr. Cuddle Face. At any rate, he was certainly not grateful for the brown lumps of high fiber diet dog food he found therein. He turned his nose up at the dishes and sauntered over to her side at the stove where he could smell the signs of some certainly non-high fiber activity going on. He affected his best hungry puppy whine to get her attention.

“No, Mr. Cuddle Face, this is people food. You go back over to your bowl and eat your yummy beef and gravy.”  His look as he walked back to the bowl said that he was certainly not willing to concede that the gray gelatinous matter in the bowl was indeed gravy.

“That’s a good baby boy, yes you are!” Isabelle turned back to the meatloaf which she was heavily salting, as was her habit. A second look at the white canister she’d been shaking liberally over the meatloaf had a picture of a smiling puppy, which she didn’t remember seeing on the salt shaker before. She turned it over in her hands and read the words “Mr. Scratchy’s Flea Powder, For Contented Canines!” Another turn revealed a skull and cross bones design indicating that it should under no circumstances be consumed. A small smile danced across her lips.

“Silly me! I must have set it right next to the salt and didn’t realize it.” She accidentally knocked a little more into the mixture with a minor exclamation of “Oops!” and set the flea powder down and picked up the similar salt canister next to it. “Well, Mr. Cuddle Face, I’ll bet if we put enough salt in here he’ll never notice it. You won’t tell on me, will you sweetums?” Her smile swirled with a mixture of innocent sweetness and slightly homicidal intent as she hummed happily to herself.

Somewhere in the vicinity of her feet Mr. Cuddle Face was busy expressing his feelings about the beef lumps and gravy paste in his bowl by piddling on the kitchen rug.