October 4, 1998

The Quest for a Sandwich

One of the fundamental downfalls to humanity will not be nuclear war or the Ebola virus or the unbearable lightness of being, but the concept of takeout. It will be made-to-order sandwich shops and incompetent fast-food employees that will start the apocalypse.

It will all start innocently enough. A hapless, albeit strikingly handsome youth, such as myself, will find himself in such a restaurant, perhaps one of those numerous Philly Cheese Steak places that exist everywhere except in Philadelphia (where authentic California Pita shops reside on every corner). He will order a sandwich and will pick it up when they call his name, innocently thinking the world is nice and happy.

He will arrive home to find that it is not the Italian Sausage Sandwich w/ Pizza Sauce he ordered and instead a triple meat steak w/ mayo. He will take this all in stride and even laughs when he reads the little receipt stapled to the sandwich wrap that says the sandwich is really for Alice. He will even rationalize in the most charmingly handsome way that the poor handwriting could easily be mistook for the name Nick.

So the valiant here, such as myself, returns back to the same restaurant, where he nonchalantly accepts their apologies (but no money back). His proper sausage sandwich has been contentedly waiting there for him, and he picks it up, making sure the receipt does read his name.

He gets back home in desperate need to fill his growling stomach. He tears off the paper, but there is no sausage, no sauce, but bacon, lettuce, tomato, and of course, mayo. He checks the receipt, and yes it does say sausage sandwich w/ sauce.

Now, in some exasperated hope of ending this vicious cycle, he decides not to return to the restaurant for the third time that night. He orders a pizza and quietly sulks about the gross incompetence of the fast food industry.

And waiting at that restaurant is a poor, misbegotten girl holding his Sausage w/ sauce, wondering whatever became of her BLT w/ mayo. If he had returned, they would have met and fallen in love, for they are soulmates of a sandwich.

Ah, but that is the goal of the vile takeout companies. The perfect love is destroyed. Never in the future shall grandparents tell their children the story of how they met.

"He had my BLT, and I had his sausage."

Never.