I Explain Cheese Mustard to a Subway Employee

I love Subway sandwiches.  They're fast, they're delicious, they're ubiquitous, and if you don't drown them in mayo and heap them with French's fried onions and then eat them with three kinds of potato chips, they're healthy. (So I've been told.  I myself adore French's fried onions.  And also potato chips.)

But I think Subway might have to step up the employee training.  I was waiting in a short line, and it was about ten minutes until the lone employee got to me, but I wasn't pissy about that.  (I was pissy, to be sure, but because we were out of French's fried onions.)  It's why I go NOWHERE without something to read.  And is it me, or does Subway seem to have zero interest in increasing their standard number of employees making sandwiches?  (Hint: their standard number is 1.) No matter what city I'm in, or what time it is, there's always one lonesome employee making the sandwiches, and the other or others are in back, out of sight. You can sometimes hear them moving around back there. It's eerie. Subway ghosts!

Anyway, waiting ten minutes was nothing new.  The weird part came when it was my turn, and I asked for cheese bread for my daughter's icky sandwich.  "Asiago bread," I said.

"I don't know what that is." 

Surprised, I took a look at the types of bread and corrected myself: "Sorry, I meant Cheddar bread." 

"Oh, okay. We've got that. The other kind, I never heard of." 

"It's a kind of cheese," I explained to the sandwich shop employee.  This was a little weird, but maybe only to me.  Maybe Asiago is more of a rarity than I thought.  Then I remembered: this whole encounter was taking place in Wisconsin, a state not unfamiliar with cheese.  Wisconsin is called America's Dairyland.  Know why?  Because it's one of the nation's leading dairy producers.  Know what's made of dairy?  Cheese. 

So, yeah. Definitely weird.

Then as she was finishing my kid's Asiago-free sandwich, I asked for Dijon.  

"I don't know what that is."

Wait. What?  The Asiago thing could probably be overlooked but Dijon?  The fifth most popular condiment in the country?  (Yeah, after this I went home and looked it up.  Shut up.)   

"It's a kind of mustard." Please, please let her know what mustard is.  "Uh, the opposite of honey mustard, I guess.  It's got a bit of a bite to it."

"Okay.  I've never even heard of it."  

"Really?"  This is why we have to bring back those "pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?" commercials.  "You've never heard of Dijon?"  Argh.  Leave it alone, MJ, you're like a bloodhound on the scent of a T-bone.  Just let it lie.  "And you've never heard of Asiago cheese?"  Dammit!  I told you to let it lie, you bloodhound bitch!

(Keep in mind, this entire conversation is happening IN A SANDWICH SHOP.)

She nodded at my car, parked in front.  It was a small shop, and surprisingly narrow, so we could all see my out-of-state license plate.  "Outta town?"

"Yep.  I apologize for bringing my big-city ways into your shop."  She laughed, thank goodness.

I took my Dijon-less sandwiches and went home to do a little research, and not just on how popular Dijon mustard is.  Per their website, "SUBWAY® brand is the world's largest submarine sandwich chain with more than 37,000 locations around the world."  Wow!  That's a lot of people who might not know know what cheese or mustard is. "We’ve become the leading choice for people seeking quick, nutritious meals".  Yeah, just not people who choose...no.  It's too easy.  I'll just say the website was good for a few laughs and let the rest lie. So back off, inner voice.

I'm not outing that particular shop.  There's nothing wrong with not knowing something, and there's nothing wrong with admitting it.  In fact, I was impressed that she was so straight-forward about it.  Since she hadn't heard of either of the things I wanted, she must have known Dijon and Asiago weren't lurking in the back with the ghosts.  She could have just said, "We don't have that" and I would have had to blog about something else this week.  (Thank goodness she didn't!)  As someone who doesn't know something at least eight times an hour, but who only admits it four times an hour, I've got no particular problem with that Subway employee.  She was a nice woman doing her best alone in front because of the whole "we can only let you see one employee at a time" Subway policy.

But Subway Corporate might want to re-vamp their training to include defining different kinds of cheese and mustard.  Just a thought.  You're welcome, Subway!

(Also, my sandwich was delicious, despite the total lack of fried onions.  But I can't put that on Subway.)