Dear Subway Sandwich Artist

I love the arts. All of them. Even the Sandwich Arts. And I say with the utmost sincerity that I duly appreciate, perhaps in ways that words cannot describe, the speed and skill with which you assemble my $5 footlong coldcut combo on Italian Herb & Cheese during your busy lunch rush. I'm a busy man with barely enough time to commute and eat as it is, let alone to stand in line whilst some lesser slackwit at one of those other sandwich restaurants might take upwards of four or even five minutes to assemble a comparable sandwich, and still get no points for style. But that's what sets you apart from the riffraff; you're an artist. But I digress.

I find it happening with increasing frequency that in your urgency to sate my starving gullet with your avante-garde creations, you've begun to forget the forest for the trees.

You used to assemble ~ahem~ create my sandwich in such a way so as to neatly fit into my mouth with minimal mess and fuss. I recall fondly a time when you would ensure that all of my ingredients were neatly sheltered from the elements securely between two protective layers of bread, exposed only in one tiny sliver of lettuce and meat peaking out from within it's doughy cocoon but all the while remaining resolutely snug and contained. It was folded closed.

I now look on all too often in mild gastronomic uneasiness as you essentially drag your safety blade haphazardly through my submarine with all of the careful precision and intent of a drunken lumberjack ripping through a downed coniferous. The tomato is supposed to go on the inside! Adding insult to injury, you then proceed to make a show of mock-folding my submarine sandwich, only to let it flop open again (which I refer to as fauxlding) before wrapping it open-faced into a sopping wet parchment threatening to spill its contents before you even hand it over to me across your olive-strewn counter, because let's face it - that much lettuce and coldcut simply wasn't meant to be reigned in by a measly foot and a half of soft white bread.

The arts are dying. Slow and painfully. But there are champions at work every day in our cold city doing their damndest -no- their duty to preserve their artform even in the wake of an oppressive Conservative regime seeking to trample it underfoot. It is in this political and social climate now more then ever that we continue to rely on your resolute commitment to defending your and your fellow artisans' artform(s). It is you that are our frontline defender, and altogether beacon for the indomitable human spirit, and I stand behind you. In front of you. Whatever.

But please, hear our cries. Close my motherfucking sandwich. Otherwise, it's just a soggy pizza.


From Rich