Are You Gonna Go My 'Way?

I didn't mean to ruin her day. But to be fair, I think she was teetering on the edge to begin with.

Here's what happened. I went to the Subway near my office to pick up a sandwich for lunch. The lady who helped me was obviously new; she kept checking her chart to make sure she was slicing the bread correctly, putting the right amount of meat on it, etc. And everything was fine -- I never order anything too complicated, so I gave myself a mental pat on the back for being an easy customer.

Then she pulled out the knife.

I don't know if it's standard procedure at all Subways or just this one, but sometimes, when a sandwich has a lot of stuff in it, they'll shove the contents in with a knife as they close it up, to make sure everything stays in when you unwrap it. The thing is, they don't wipe off the knife every time, so you're getting traces of the toppings of everyone else's sandwich too. And being lactose intolerant, I can't have that. The last time that happened, I ended up ingesting some creamy sauce and was sick for an entire weekend. So when I saw her go for the knife, I spoke up.

What I said was "wait! Please don't use that," but the way her face looked, it was as if I had yelled "Help! The Subway lady is stabbing me!" She was totally thrown off guard. Her face was a mixture of confusion and annoyance. I explained the whole dietary thing and apologized for startling her, but nothing I said got the "get me out of here" (or was it "you get out of here"?) look off her face.

Most likely, she was embarrassed that that had happened in front of her new boss, and I feel bad about that. She didn't do anything that the boss herself doesn't do. Still, I had to speak up; I wasn't about to resign myself to tummy trouble for the next three days just to make her feel better.

Five bucks says she's gone within the week. Or at least finds an excuse to go on break next time she sees me walk in the door.