Friday, February 27, 2009

Quiznos

Quiznos is this sandwich place .... no it's a sub place. If I'm right they're called subs because the bread's shaped like submarines. No one calls 'em sandwiches anymore. In fact no one makes them out of those pretty square pieces of bread anymore. It's always subs.

Anyway... so quiznos is this sub place that is located very strategically in my life. It's on the way from my lab to the bus stop. It's also right across the indian grocery store that one has to frequent several times a month to buy all kinds of frozen rotis and parathas and shredded coconut and masalas and atta noodles. At my place, we're always stocking up everything as though a storm were brewing. And still, if a storm comes, we wouldn't last an hour. I'm pretty sure of that.

In any case, after a tired day, when you're on your way home, it's nice to stop by quiznos to buy a quick sammy (it's a 2 dollar mini something. It's not a sub. It's a clumsy sandwich that I haven't gotten around to eating gracefully yet). When one is hungry, it is exactly the right size for you to quickly gulp it before walking across the road to the indian store (this manoevre probably explains the complete lack of sub-eating-grace), where trust me, carrying dozens of frozen rotis and all sorts of things that you think you're going to need, or reminds you of home, or reminds you that you never used to like it much back in india, but things have changed a lot since coming to a country that sells subs instead of paneer cheese sandwiches... basically, the load gets pretty heavy and you've to ingest some carbs before embarking on such an endeavour.

That's how quiznos is making a lot of money off me. Whenever I forget to get lunch or get up too late or cannot be bothered or am not in the mood to have roti and something from 4 days ago yet another time, it's quiznos to the rescue again.

Why quiznos needed to give away a gazillion free subs, I don't know. But they did. And my friend called me and sent me a coupon and told me to print it and claim what is rightfully mine ( all free things are rightfully mine. All things that cost are also rightfully mine, and they're all going to hell some day to avenge for their sins!!!). And of course, any self-respecting and starved grad student is in the mood for all things free and bountiful. I print my coupon and head to quiznos proudly knowing that I am very much going to like this freebie. Hold on... I printed my coupon.... but I did not take it with me. And I've worked up this appetitie and am standing in the line with a million others nursing their hunger and waiting for their small sub when I realize that I dont' have the coupon. I figured... eh... what the heck... I might as well buy the small sub anyway and come claim the freebie tomorrow. And there's lovely toasted bread smell wafting in the air. And melted cheese aroma. And the greenery of fresh lettuce. And the gorgeous looking black olives and mushrooms. And I stand in that hazy place for 15 minutes before I get to place my order.

And this is where I prove to the world that Quiznos is not only a great sub place but is also good at marketing its subs. Because I ordered a 9 dollar large veggie sub. A large veggie sub is humongous. It's large enough for US to come at you, insist that you are a country by yourself, then prove to the UN (which is synonymous for US) that you're building a nuclear arsenal, and then come at you and insist that you sign the non proliferation treaty. That really is how large, the large sub is. And that's how big my appetitite had gotten in 15 minutes of wait time.

And if tomorrow they publish a report in the pittsburgh-post0gazette about the healthy local economy and the encouraging increase in the consumer spending and the small ray of hope that the worst is behind us, we'll all know exactly what's behind this strange trend won't we ?


Go Gastric Juices!!!


PS :
What happened to the missing coupon ? I don't know. I can't seem to find it.

PPS:
I wanted to glitter up my post with my newly acquired knowledge of nucleii in the human brain. There's this one nucleus to which input from both the gut and the tongue go to. Which is important... coz salivation and intestinal juice activity is intricately connected. But this newly acquired knowledge has long since abandoned me and I don't know the name of that nucleus. And there can be nothing geekier on a "thank god it's friday" than to peruse through the brain atlas to spot this nucleus. Which I cannot be bothered to do.

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