25 What?
A few weeks ago at my High School reunion I won a gift card to Krazy Sub, a sub sandwich shop close to the school's campus, by remembering the score of the football game against our arch-rival 10 years ago. Sometimes useless factoids come through for you. In this case, it came through to the tune of 10 bucks.
Though I wasn't a regular, I recall that Steve's Krazy Sub was one of the more popular haunts back in "the day." In fact two of my good friends, (then) Stacey Riggs and Julie Tenney, worked there. Maybe the fact that they were "popular" elevated Steve's to the status it enjoyed. To be brutally honest, I had been to Steve's exactly one time, and that was a quick drop-in to say hello.
So at some point during the past 10 years as I was away in Russia and Utah, the little sub shop by the school changed its name to The Krazy Sub. OK, whatever. To this fine establishment I won the aforementioned gift card.
One lazy Saturday afternoon Ashley and I opted to mozy over to The Krazy Sub so as to enjoy lunch on the class of 1996 reunion planning committee. We came with her sister, who was attending ASU at the time.
Given that I wasn't a regular, I had no real basis for comparison. I will say that I was somewhat struck by the overall crappiness of the place. Crappiness may be a bit harsh, but the walls, tables and floors were pretty beat up. It wasn't cozy. It wasn't inviting. The sandwich assembly line was hidden behind a 7-foot wall of some kind. On the right was where you start; you place your order and shuffle past the 7-foot separation wall and pick up your order on the far left of the counter. Standard fare for a sub shop.
Above the wall was the menu, wherein all the different available sandwiches, toppings, sauces and extras are advertised. The menu was boring. The toppings looked budget.
So I stepped right up to the counter, placed an order and started my shuffle past the mysterious wall.
And then it happened. It caught me off guard, and hit me hard. It seemed so innocent, but it was lurking. I had my infernal cell phone with me, which happens to have a camera. So see for yourself.
Though I had examined the menu to choose my meal, I apparently missed the fact that they charge $.25 (25¢) for a refill. Say what!!!?
In high school, I worked at Taco Bell. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that somewhere in the mid-'90s Taco Bell paved the way for soda drinkers everywhere by offering same-visit, in-diner free refills. Like 10 years ago. It seems that every crappy fast food restaurant has since followed suit. For that matter, I don't know when the last time I paid for a refill was.
In my mind, free drink refills have risen to the ranks of: taxes, commercials and infomercials, vehicle registration, clothing, noise, air, recycling, holiday weight gain, fossil fuels, my birthday (4th of July, Thanksgiving and every other holiday), elevators in tall buildings, FBI Warnings at the beginning of rented movies, my bad vision, cell phones, couches, water pipes, paint, sand and dirt, clouds, leaves, the plant and animal kingdoms all together (including fish, mullosks and fungus), high fructose corn syrup, FD&C Yellow #5, Wal-Mart, traffic lights, cassettes, CDs and DVDs, motor oil, color TV, sidewalks, grass, bark, grasshoppers, pianos, carpet, trees, Microsoft, telephones, hair dryers, mirrors, Albuquerque, outer space, Fenway Park, shoe soles, leather, lotion, chapped lips, overpopulation, boats, farms, t-shirts, otters, clay, speedometers, teenage acne, toothpaste, guacamole, vehicle emissions, speed limits, electricity, glass, smelly cat litter, DisneyWorld and Disneyland, email, paper, lawn mowers, hair gel and Monopoly.
These are things that more or less just are. I can pretty much anticipate with a fair deal of certainty that paved city streets are made of asphalt or cement, just like I have grown accustomed to getting free refills on a fountain drink. I mean, come on. Am I out of line here?
Apparently, I am. There still seems to be just cause in charging customers money for soda refills. Not that you don't pay for it 20 times over by paying a buck for it. They insult you by taking yet another quarter.
The sight of this sign absolutely blind sighted me. I erupted into a fit of laughter I had not experienced in ages. I laughed out loud, very loudly at that. I embarrassed Ashley, her sister and I'm pretty confident The Krazy Sub worker thought me an idiot. It was grand. I laughed for several minutes on end. Tears welled up and started flowing. I was out of control: OOC. There was no stopping this train. I was on the 25 cent nonstop to hysteria.
I had to buy a refill, just for the novelty of it all. "Back in my day, you had to pay MONEY for a refill..." Do you see the obsurdity of it all yet?
The quality was mediocre. The sandwich was dry. My second Mt. Dew was a quarter. As much as the paid refill annoyed me, it made the whole experience. I would have left thinking that The Krazy Sub was a lousy sandwich shop, and we wouldn't have spent the past few moments together.
That's all I have to say about that.
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