March 29, 2024

A bun in the oven with our name on it

A few months back I hopped aboard the commitment train and got hitched to my lovely gal Christine.

Now we are about to endeavor toward a new commitment that we have never experienced before. One of those granddaddy undertakings that take some couples try-after-try, year-after-year.

So I — make that we — have an impressive and perhaps startling announcement to make concerning this new commitment of ours, which has not been disclosed to a single, solitary soul until this very moment.

We will soon be having a little bundle of joy. There is a bun in the oven with our name on it.

That’s right, after years of trying Christine and I are nearly complete with redeeming our Subway rewards card in for one free sub.

I’ll say it again. One. Free. Sub!

Look I am not going to sit here and lie to you. I am pretty sure my mother, who lives four houses down from me, just had a heart attack. I mean, seriously. My dad is probably calling the paramedics as you read this. Nevertheless the duty and power of journalism calls and the show must go on.

So back to the soon-to-be free sub we have coming to us from Subway. It has taken us much patience, perseverance and Subway footlongs to accumulate the amount of points required to qualify for a free footlong sub. At any point in time we could have deviated from the plan and doubled down with two chocolate chip cookies for 20 points or 20 points for one 21 ounce soft drink.

But no, we have stayed the course and now our efforts will soon be paying off.

I was close to a free sub once before, but it was stolen out of the refrigerator at work. I later rectified the situation with silent justice. I bought a hamburger, put my name on it and put it in the work fridge. A few days later when the sub thief (presumably) ate the hamburger he was totally unaware that I spit on it on purpose. A better man than I once said, “It’s a small price to pay for the smiting of one’s enemies.”

Now it’s all of these years later. We have 72 points. We need 75, which means we are a mere six inches of sub away from receiving enough fake sub points to get a free footlong sub of our choosing.

Don’t you just love America? Only in America, the epicenter of the child obesity epidemic, will you find a fast food promotion based on rewarding the voracious appetites and bad eating habits of their customers. Want free fast food? Well eat as much fast food as you can and you might be rewarded with more food.

I have done the math. It takes an entire footlong sub to get six points. That means a person has to eat 12 feet and six inches (or four yards) of sub to get a free foot of sub to eat.

And don’t tell me Subway is good for you. I am sure it is in moderation. But I assure you that nothing about the people I typically see gorging themselves at Subway suggests “in moderation.” After all, it’s not like these people are stopping in after yoga class and ordering a vegetarian sub. Trust me, I should know. I think I have established that I spend enough time in Subway trying to retrieve fake food points for you to ignore that I would pick up on these sorts of mind-blowing observations.

So what kind of sub do we plan on getting? Even though we talk about it before we go to bed each night we still don’t have a clue. The fact is it doesn’t really matter. We both know the best kind of sub is a free sub.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go see if my mother is still alive and, provided she is, whether or not she has disowned me.