After a Friday morning that featured a very light breakfast and a fairly heavy workout, I resolved to pick up something at least sort of substantial for lunch on my way to work.
I decided on Subway, mainly because whatever I ended up ordering there could include a decent collection of vegetables, which I had sort of been neglecting to include in my diet over the previous few days.
Or could it?
Typically at Subway, I order a Spicy Italian, which is built around around a couple different varieties of sliced sausage and, in my case, provolone cheese. To that I have the sandwich maker add lettuce, tomato, pickles, olives, green peppers, onions and banana peppers.
But on Friday, for reasons I’m not completely sure of, I ordered a BLT — as in, a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, for the benefit of those of you who haven’t lived in western civilization for very long. I guess I did so just because, well, I love bacon.
However, with the sandwich’s ingredients listed right their in the name, I wondered if a customer were allowed to add extra initials if he wanted to. I figured he probably could, and it turns out I was right.
“What veggies do you want on your sandwich?” the cheerful blond staffer said.
“Well, I guess I’ll start with the standard BLT components,” I said.
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t,” said her male co-worker, like the woman roughly 20 years old. “One guy wanted double bacon and double cheese, and that’s it.”
“So he ordered a BLT without the L or the T,” I said.
“Yep.”
Which reminded me of a movie.
“You ever seen ‘Five Easy Pieces?’” I asked.
“No.”
“It has Jack Nicholson,” I said. “You know Jack Nicholson?”
“Yes,” he said to my relief.
I then relayed a famous scene from the movie to him, as best I could remember it: The one where Jack goes into a restaurant and wants to order toast, only to be told they don’t serve toast, so he orders a BLT and tells the waitress to hold the bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayo.
When I arrived at work, I told city editor Karen Petersen about my Subway adventure regarding the inaccurately named BLT.
“So basically what you’re ordering is a bacon sandwich,” she said.
“Yep.”
Well, there are far worse things. Like my son Bob and I always say, we’ve never eaten anything and found ourselves saying, “this would be so great if only it didn’t have bacon, or if it had less bacon.”
And now for today’s Catch of the Day, No. 29. It’s a McGregor Goldsmith first baseman’s mitt, a Ferris Fain model. The ill-tempered Fain won the 1951 and 1952 American League batting titles with the Philadelphia Athletics, then three decades later ran afoul of the California legal system for his prodigious marijuana-growing operation:
