April’s guest post comes from the wonderfully witty donofalltrades! What you should know about Don is that he recently tried to pawn one of his toddler’s off on me like an old pocket watch, but since it wasn’t nearly as shiny as a pocket watch would be, I didn’t accept. On the bright side, I also didn’t throw it in the river, which is where I’d like to put most children. If you visit the Guest Blogging page on Sass & Balderdash, there are a list of things I did not want in a guest post, but through some misunderstanding, the master of no trades himself thought these were topics I loved. Through this misunderstanding, the following hilarious story ensued. Enjoy! And don’t forget to visit his blog for more toddlers, misunderstandings, and general hilarity.
The Journey of Carl
My name is Carl and I recently completed my GED. I’m now a 26 year old junior college attendee and proud Subway employee.
Gross.
Image source: subwaydcw
I was spending another Thursday evening shift cleaning up after a bunch of degenerates in the bathroom and pondering how sad puppy genocide is when my manager and store owner, Brutus, came walking in.
“Brutus, this happy hour idea is ridiculous; we’ve got to end it.” I said while vigorously mopping the last of the brown turd stains from a stall where someone had managed to crap everywhere except into the toilet where it’s supposed to go.
“It’s really bringing in large crowd, Carl. I’m pleased with the idea and we’re going to stick with it for awhile.”
“Yeah, it’s bringing in a large crowd of disgusting knuckle draggers, Brutus!” I huffed in frustration. “This afternoon I walked into the bathroom and saw some dirtbag who looked freakishly like Will Ferrell masturbating by our bathroom sink while gawking at a magazine picture of Jennifer Aniston! He used the whole bottle of hand sanitizer for God’s sake!”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” said Brutus in a nasally voice caused by him squeezing his nostrils closed to prevent the stench of this putrid crime scene from entering his olfactory zone.
A local Panera store in a trendy part of the city opened recently and has a give what you want policy whereby folks order food and leave whatever amount they want to pay.
The restaurant suggests a certain amount for a meal, but the customer can pay any amount he or she chooses. The store is operated as a nonprofit and the proceeds go to charity. Most people leave at least the suggested amount or more, while only around 20% or so leave less than suggested. It’s been declared a success as a charity and business model.
Because he’s an idiot, Brutus feared that this new restaurant, which is exactly 52.4 miles away from our Subway store, according to Google Maps, was going to cut into his business.
There are no less than 35 other places to get a sandwich between here and that Panera store, including three Jimmy John’s and two other Subways, but he was worried that it was that particular Panera Restaurant that was going to cause his profits to shrivel up and make his store go the way of the dodo bird.
In order to combat this nonexistent threat and to be able to say that he’s a giving man, he came up with Homeless Happy Hour Thursdays. It was either this or offer free hot air balloon rides to every customer who spent ten dollars, but mercifully, he couldn’t conceive of a way to make that happen.
From 2pm until close on Thursdays, all homeless patrons get a six inch sandwich of their choice, a small drink and a bag of chips for a quarter.
NO.
Image source: Dixie Online
So now, every Thursday, we get minivans and mini coopers full of families and umbrella twirling nancy boys respectively, purporting to be homeless in order to get a meal for twenty-five cents.
We have no way of proving that these assholes aren’t homeless, so we just sell them the meal for the quarter and send them on their way.
Brutus is pleased with the number of people taking advantage of the promotion.
Profits have never been lower.
Worse than people we can only suspect are screwing us over by claiming to be homeless, we get real homeless people in droves now as well.
They come into the store with all of their worldly possessions in tow, reeking of ass and feet and vomit and death.
Once, a particularly smelly guy came in carrying a pogo stick.
“What the hell are you doing with a pogo stick,” I said while wishing he’d pogo himself out the door and break his neck falling from the thing.
“I fountit! Gon get me some monies for it!” he shrieked while managing to spit what I can only assume were remnants of his breakfast and some Mad Dog Grape all over the side of my face.
Ah, I thought to myself. You stole a pogo stick that probably belongs to some kid.
“Stay classy, sir.” I said while handing him is lunch without making contact with this dirty half gloved hand.
These disgusting people sit in the store for hours, polluting the clean air with their funk and sucking up our air conditioning while turning our once proud franchise location into a homeless shelter all night long. The sight of it makes me sad, like desertification of a beautiful rain forest into a useless barren wasteland of sand and dirt.
They come and go all night long. Some buy nothing and others buy enough meals to last them until next Thursday.
Sometimes gross.
Image source: sodahead
Last week, I had to listen to a dissertation from a snooty gentleman in business attire, who alleged he was homeless and living in his Lexus, about the merits of blue cheese.
“Why don’t you offer blue cheese for your sandwiches, young man” asked Snooty.
“I don’t make the menu, sir; I just make the sandwiches and clean the bathrooms.” I said politely.
“Well, it’s a delightfully pungent cheese, and would go well on my club sandwich,” he said, clearly not intending to hear me. “You should offer blue cheese and perhaps celery as a healthy snack alternative.”
“I’m sorry sir; we don’t have blue cheese or goat cheese or brie cheese or camembert cheese or celery either! We have yellow and white cheese! This is a Subway, not a delicatessen catering to muckitty mucks! Once I tried to suggest we start serving broccoli as a healthy side and cheesecake for dessert, but my boss hates cheesecake because the texture is disgusting and it has the word cheese in it. And everybody hates broccoli, he said. It’s a vile weed! ” I was reaching my breaking point when he handed me a one hundred dollar bill to pay for his twenty five cent dinner.
“Really? You’re a homeless man with a Lexus and hundred dollar bills?” I asked skeptically.
“A nice woman gave this to me for changing her tire a few minutes ago.”
I looked him over and didn’t notice a single spot of dirt or grease or grime on his swell three piece suit, but was tired of having him standing in front of me.
“Well, it’s your lucky day, I guess, I’ll pay for your dinner too.” I said
“Oh thank you, that’s very kind of you. I’ll also need four more of the exact same thing for the rest of my homeless family too please.”
It took all I could muster to keep myself from lunging across the counter to choke the life from this six- figure earning homeless man who was jobbing me for $1.25 worth of Subway, courtesy of an ill conceived and even more ill continued Bruce promotion, but I managed.
He finally left, but more came, both real homeless and pretend homeless, every Thursday.
I give each of them a Panera Restaurant pamphlet describing the free meals they could get from that store, as well as a bus schedule highlighting the routes that will take them from our front door to that spot 52.4 miles away.
It only requires a couple of transfers.
Filed under: Etc., Guest Bloggers Tagged: blog, blogging, blue cheese, donofalltrades, fiction, funny, guest post, humor, humour, mini coopers, story, subway, writing
