Worchester, MA – Esther Urville, manager at Norbert’s Garden Shop, too frazzled to brown bag her lunch this morning, ran to the local deli on her lunch hour. While placing her order, she was reminded, to her chagrin, of the election just passed.
“I wanted a roast beef sandwich, with pepperoni, black olives, onions, red peppers and three slices of swiss cheese without too many holes in them,” Mrs. Urville said. “When I ordered, they looked at me funny and said the only options were vegetarian or B.L.T. My first thought was how much it was like voting.”
Cheese cutter Frank Boyle narrated what happened next.
“We tried pointing out how our vegetarian option had the onions, the olives and the peppers, but she refused to take it unless we put the cheese and roast beef on it, too. We told her that was impossible, it wouldn’t be vegetarian anymore, we don’t have it on the menu…”
“I told those fuckers to add it, then.” Esther threw in.
“That’s about when I was called in,” deli owner Yeroslav Yakotam said, “She wanted it added to the menu, and I told her it’s not worth adding because she would be the only one asking for that kind of sandwich.”
“I said they didn’t have to add it to the menu, they just had to give me the sandwich I wanted,” Esther grumbled.
“I told her that if we did that, everyone would want their own personal sandwich and it would ruin the point of a menu.”
“I offered to buy both and make my own sandwich…”
“We pointed to our ‘1 order per customer’ policy. You can only pick one…”
Realizing how tenuous the election/sandwich analogy had become, we went to political science and nutrition guru Todd Hannt, who laid two plates on his desk.
“Here, we have the ham sandwich. Here, the cheese. Those are your only two options. Want turkey? Too bad. It’s kept behind the counter because no one orders it because no one knows it’s there, because it’s not on the menu. Want it on the menu? Get people to realize it’s an option and have them order it. Want to make people realize it’s an option and order it? Get it on the menu.
“A conundrum, yes? Here’s how to solve it…”
Mr. Hannt put the cheese sandwich on top of the ham sandwich and took a massive bite, gagged, and choked to death.
We stood by until he was cold before deciding that, if this was the solution, it was quite harsh.
As the guy still waiting for an opportunity to gloat, I await the conservative bastard who was so convinced of a Romney landslide so I can unleash the hell I've been building up inside me.