Who ordered the scrambled brains?

I’m at work and I have some free time so I’m gonna share with you the story of the Psycho Sandwich Eater.

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about Subway’s new “Two-Night” dinner deal, but for those who haven’t, you get two six inch sandwiches, two bags-a-chips, and two soder paps for $7.99. Indeed, a scintillating value for a deal with a scintillating name. Mademoiselle Natalie and Monsieur myself, being healthy, value-conscious eaters (i.e. being starvingly poor), ventured forth to partake in this curious new delight. Wait, what happened to my lexicon?! … That was weird… OK methinks it passed. Damnit there it is again! Hold on.

OK, that took a while, but I’m back. I just dunked my head into a pot of boiling water. Now I feel so crazy I’m back to normal, thanks to the mysterious Pac-Man Effect, which causes anything taken to the extreme to loop back to the original state, like Pac-Man walking off the right edge of the screen and appearing on the left edge. (Michael Chu, The Tao of Pac-Man: Universal Causality Looping and Other Strange Insights, Kindergarten Press)

Where the heck was I? Ah, so we took to the local Subway eatery to obtain a healthy repast. Upon arriving, we skirted through the door in front of a large, bearded man with an uneasy demeanor. Ahead of us in line were two thirty-something hispanics, placing a large order. Behind us, the large, bearded man with the uneasy demeanor. I mean, man, did he bring a demeanor that was freakin’ uneasy or what?! So Mlle. Nat started telling me the details about her promotion application process. But as she was talking, I heard the distant rumblings of a blood-thirsty lunatic: the man behind me, the large one with the beard and that crazy-ass demeanor, took an inordinately audible deep breath, and expelled it through every resonant cavity in his trachea. He prolonged this expulsion for as long as his large overworked lungs would permit. One could only imagine the tension that filled the air, as if he had the awesome or unfortunate or weird preternatural ability exhale pure tension. It set off social fire-alarms all throughout my higher brain. This was a man that was under the dual influences of impatience and starvation.

But the mademoiselle didn’t notice. Neither did the hispanics, or the employees. So he did it again, the whole charade with the loud inhalation and the breathing of tension. It shook me too the bones, but unfortunately the worst was yet to come. “I. Am. Going to kick someone,” he stammered under his breath. Now that shook me to the molecules. This was a man that got his lunch money stolen and was then kicked and rubbed with salt when he was a younger, less large man. Still no one noticed. So not only was he socially inept, he was also passive-agressively inept, a humiliating combination no doubt. So he let out one more “GASP GASP GASP SIGH SIGH SIGH.” That got Nat’s attention and I was suddenly faced with a conundrum.

Putting one’s self above the expectations others are held to is something I truly abhor. Like the freakin’ greedy bastard that drives in the Exit Only lane of the freeway only to squeeze back onto the freeway lanes at the last possible moment, here was a large, bearded, demeanor-wielding greedy bastard of fast-food lines. Except his method of screwing the rest of us over was to express that he’s a psychopath. Usually I speed up, hold my ground, not to budge an inch lest that greedy BMW-driving bastard takes advantage of my slip of attention and pushes in front of my car in my lane. My lane! But in those situations I’m protected by my Civic’s number-one-amongst-small-cars crash-protection capabilities. The only crash protection capabilities I had in line at Subway were my glasses and my clothes.

“You can go ahead of us if you want.” I know. I rolled over like an SUV avoiding a squirrel. Or a bear, I guess in this case. But would Natalie understand, or would she see it as an act of cowardice? “I had to do it,” I explained to Natalie. “He’s probably in a hurry to get home before the end of the Star Trek commercial break.”

“No he is in a hurry to get home and finish chopping up that girl he just murdered,” she replied. Phew! She understood. My masculinity was spared. And we got home safe and enjoyed our sandwiches. But if this is what it means to eat healthy, then I think I’ll be just fine with my Jack in the Box and McDonald’s. Drive-thru, that is.

Follow me on Twitter for the latest updates, and make sure to check out my community opinion social networking project, Blocvox.