“I’ll have a 6 inch club on wheat please,” I say to the hygienically wrapped youth at the local Subway.

I do like a Subway sandwich every now and again, and the one around the corner from the office is getting a bit more business from me than is perhaps healthy. Oh well, it is nearly Christmas!

“Would you like Cheese with that?” he said after approaching the halfway point in the assembly of my lunch.

“Yes please.”

He put the cheese on, and moved to the salad portion of the sandwich making conveyor counter.

“Would you like Salad?”

“Well, yes, but can I have it toasted first?” I like my sandwiches toasted you see. It is like having a proper meal if it is warm. Getting it toasted is the single biggest differentiator they have compared to the variety of the other non-toasting sandwich vendors in the vicinity.

“I’m afraid the grill has been a little temperamental this morning, and we can’t tell when it is going to work and when it is not.” he said before gesturing towards the salad.

“So you’re not even going to try it?”

“Well, I think I’m going to give it a little bit longer to calm down and try it later,” he explained, as if his grill was a three year old child sent to the naughty step to have a little think about its behaviour.

“Can’t you try it now?”

“I don’t think it will work, it is best we leave it.”

“So you want to leave it, hoping it will work for customers you ‘might’ get later on, at the expense of one standing right in front of you right now? Namely me?”

The weight of my argument began to register with him, and after looking at my half-made sandwich, and then back at me he spoke.

“Would you like me to try it right now?”

“Yes please.”

My sandwich made its way into the super-fast grilling machine (I think this is the technical term) and he pressed a button.

Nothing, whatsoever, happened.

He glanced back me with a look that screamed, “See! I am the sandwich making professional in this relationship, I said it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t work. You are an idiot!”

The rest of the transaction was completed with the usual business like efficiency, and I took my cold sandwich back to the office.

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