SALTPEPPER??
October 7, 2001
dearly missing my daily march to the local cafe for a sandwich. Unlike more devoted members to most companies I’ve worked at, I draw the line at working through my lunch break. Sure, reheating last night’s casserole in the microwave and grimly soldering on through what’s apparently ‘urgent’ paperwork aided solely by congealed globs of macaroni may be a way of life for some, but it doesn’t ring too well with me.
My point of view is that the lunch break is there for a purpose. It’s simply unhealthy and disruptive to your workflow to continue laboring throughout a designated one-hour break. This will often cause an inharmonious rift between your workmates if you’re attempting to break something that’s deeply etched into workplace culture, but you can always get them to call the WorkCover hotline for confirmation of your rights. Besides, WorkCover will be glad to talk to someone about something besides the importance of office furniture with rounded edges.
All those reasons, in addition to the fact that I’m a lazy arse. Upon leaving the building of wherever I happen to work at the time, I enter a mysterious stasis zone where time clocks over at nine tenths of its regular speed; strangely extending my lunch break by ten to fifteen bonus minutes with no apparent explanation.
Wherever I’ve worked, I’m usually a devoted consumer of a designated local sandwich-dispensing cafe. Sandwich hands, besides being a potentially interesting title for a superhero (’I do not fear you, Zonkro the Evil - I shall swat you away with my FISTS OF BAGEL!’), are absolute machines of efficiency. Upon warily entering a cafe you’re immediately barked at for your order.
The last cafe I visited on a regular basis was always manned by a single sandwich hand. She seemed to become increasingly distressed as the construction of my sandwich progressed, with her pitch of voice apparently directly correlating with the amount of vegetables I required. We usually began our daily conversation with a polite ‘White or brown bread?’, but by the end of the process she was screaming monosyllabic demands which quite frankly scared me - and with spittle-flecked taunts like ‘BUTTER?’ and ‘SALTPEPPER??’, who wouldn’t develop anxiety over their daily midday meal.
Of course, after you develop a tolerance for two slices of bread in a bag, the meal starts to take on meagre expectations of being filling. I began ordering two sandwiches at once to quash my hunger, which was met with horrified eyes by the sandwich hand. With close consultation to their menu blackboard, I believe she added thirty cents to my order daily simply to get the message across that she was a very busy woman and had many other sandwiches to make.
I wasn’t going to let her win, though. Oh, no. Although I did attempt thinking about adjectives like ‘hearty’ whilst eating a singular serve of sandwich to sedate my hunger - I vowed not to cry defeat so soon.
On my next visit, after umming and ahhing at length over my ingredients for my duo of sandwiches, I concluded that I would opt for a simple chicken and cheese combination. With a somewhat relieved sigh, the sandwich hand glared at me in a conquerous manner. Chuckling to myself, I awaited the revelation of my secret weapon with anticipation.
As she began to package my sandwich up, I intervened. ‘No, no,’ I cried. ‘I want those toasted.’
Her eyes bugged out of her head in disbelief. I nodded sagely as she angrily trotted off to the sandwich press. Upon her return, she managed to bulldoze me completely with an untoppable action.
Grabbing the two bread bags she was using for her sandwiches from underneath the desk, she swung them around in the air, nunchucka style, with flagrant disregard for the bacterial impact her darkish, sweaty armpits may have incurred upon impact with the bread. My jaw dropped, and she smirked in full knowledge that she’d just performed the most unspeakable of sandwich cafe war crimes.
She had revealed the brand of bread they were using.
Once I know the bread brand, there’s no mysteriousness in the purchase any more. It’s just a shambles which I could have concocted myself, now that I know I can purchase all the ingredients from the supermarket. The fact that the sandwich itself was singularly more expensive than the whole frigging loaf itself infuriated me.
‘No more sandwiches!’ I screamed, pointing pointedly at her flying Buttercup Super Sandwich Maker weapons. ‘THE ILLUSION IS RUINED!’ I sobbed, then bolted from the store, making sure to wave my arms in the air for dramatic effect.
And thus, the process begins all over again at the local cafe adjacent to the next job I obtain.
