Midtown Miscreant vs. Angry Lettuce Girl

It's the little things. Four words that can be used in a myriad of ways. It's the little things in life that make it worth living. It's the little things we take for granted, Its the little things that......insert your own ending, you get the point. Here's one, it's the little things that cause people to snap. Guess which little thing I'm about to address.

The little thing took place a couple of days ago at Jimmie Johns Deli on Westport road. It really was a little thing, ordering extra meat. Now to most of us , the act of ordering some extra turkey seems simple enough, you order something , your order is filled, you pay, you leave with your sandwich and extra meat in hand, heh heh. All in all it's one of life's small mundane things that normally wouldn't merit writing about. What should have been a simple innocuous little thing, took an ugly turn. So grab your pickle and take a trip with me through the deli from hell.

A friend and myself decided to grab a couple of sandwiches at JJ's, we walk in, and place our orders with the stoner/slacker looking kid manning the register. Things went smoothly , although I noticed that the lone female worker was a little surly, barking out questions, like what kind of bread, with a little attitude in her voice. You know "The Voice", the one you get from some under achiever in their 30's who is pissed off at their lot in life and ends up slinging fast food surrounded by teenagers and 20 something grad students who are just passing through on their way to college degrees.

So the line up goes like this, stoner kid at register, angry masculine woman manning the bread and lettuce , college kid next to her throwing it all together and wrapping it up, delivery guy at the very end, doing nothing more than looking at his reflection in the window, which twinkles due to all of the rings, studs and other metal objects piercing his face and ears, and yours truly standing with cash in hand.


I place my order and say to the kid, I want extra turkey with that , no problem says stoner boy. But don't put the extra meat on the sandwich, wrap it separate, says I. Before smokey the cash register guy can ring it up, angry lettuce woman barks, "We cant do that". Huh? I'll have to charge you for another sandwich she says. How's that, I say. Because you don't want the meat on the sandwich she replies. What difference does that make, I ask. She looks up at me with a malevolent grin and utters words that should never come from the mouth of someone who shreds lettuce for a living, "Corporate, says so" she replies.


This would be the point where any reasonable person would just let it go, mutter okay, and let lettuce woman gloat over shutting down another customers request . I've never claimed to be a reasonable person, I've also never gone out of my way to be a prick just for shits and giggles. However, when some clown or clown-ette, tries to flex their "I'm In Charge" muscles on me, especially over something trivial, it tends to piss me off. That being said, there was no way I was going to let this sourdough roll Nazi get the best of me.


Im just trying to get a little extra turkey to take back to the dogs, I'm paying for it, so I'm having a little trouble seeing how this process suddenly took a turn in to the corporate world. I'll admit I have no first hand knowledge of policy and procedure of Jimmie Johns Deli, especially the subsections dealing with the disbursement of thinly sliced processed meats. However, Im fairly confident that "corporate" policy doesn't forbid separating meat from bread, in other words, lettuce girl is just breaking my balls because she can, or thinks she can.


There was a time when I would have told her to do something anatomically impossible with my entire order, there was a time when my temper would have got the best of me, I've matured , but I haven't matured completely. Im still stubborn enough and immature enough to not let Lettuce girl get one over on me.


So I take an intellectual approach, I reason with her, and lettuce girl , like most mouth breathers, has a chink in her armor, that chink is reason. So, all activity has ceased, the other employees have taken notice that my voice has raised a few decibels, my smooth shaven head has taken a dark reddish tone, my forehead has a big vein popping out , Im clearly getting pissed, eye contact ceases, except for lettuce girl who is looking smug and trying to get to the next order.


So I ask lettuce girl, "I can order extra meat, right? Clearly annoyed she says, yeah, but it has to go on the sandwich. I say, " well wrap it up in paper and put it on the sandwich. Stoner boy snickers and gets a look that says he will be doing some of the shittier tasks at closing. She rolls her eyes, breathes a sigh that says Im an idiot, starts to utter some more nonsense about corporate, thinks better of it and finally, she surrenders. She mumbles for the guy next to her in the assembly line to wrap the meat up. The dogs loved it, and Im pretty sure the corporate world was none the worse for it. And lettuce girl no doubt went home and told her 5 cats about the douche bag customer who had the audacity to not recognize her authority and who wouldn't capitulate when she pulled out the word "Corporate" as if it were a pistol.