The Epic of the Turkey Sandwich

[Niffoni]

It's been a long time since I've done any freeform writing, however, today's voyage home from the office, and the fact that I have read entirely too much Douglas Adams recently leaves me with little choice but to chronicle the journey for the amusement of anyone bored enough to need something stupid to read.

Each day, I bound happily out of work to the bus stop, where I find it is unusually chilly, return to the office, get my coat, and return to the bus stop. This is where I catch the Number 1 Bus. Mathematicians will be surprised to discover - should any ever visit Halifax - that there is not just one Number 1, but that there is, in fact, one every ten minutes, which really screws up the way they've been counting all these years, which (I imagine) is why they never visit.

Good. One non-sensical run-on sentence so far. I feel more Douglas Adams-y already.

The upside to this is that, should I be in the mood, I can hop off the bus mid-way home, drop into a Subway restaraunt and get myself a turkey sandwich, and return to the bus stop with time to spare to catch the next Number 1. This way, I have myself a tasty dinner ready for consumption the minute I walk in the door, and only adds 10 minutes to my commute.

This brings me to the second reason that mathematicians do not visit Halifax, which is that the Metro Transit system has done something that they have not been able to do: They have proven that time is not an immutable constant. There goes an argument by certain creationists that it IS in fact possible for God to have created the world in 6 days provided that he did not invent the actual days until late in the process. In this same way, Halifax commuters awaiting the Number 1 Bus at any number of bus stops have countless times proven that "Every 10 minutes" can mean any number of things. This is not merely a temporal anomaly that I find interesting enough to share with you, but also something that will become signifigant later on in this story.

I entered the Subway just off my Number 1 Bus, and noted that a second Number 1 Bus coasted cheerfully by immediately afterwards. I was not terribly preturbed by this; it's become part of Haligonian existance to accept that sometimes, 10 minutes goes by very quickly if measured on the Metro Transit scale. I found the Subway nearly deserted with a single clerk (pardon me.. "Sandwich Artist") serving a woman whose boyfriend was seated nearby. The woman was ordering them a pair of sandwiches, but seemed to be having some difficulty doing so. The process of ordering a sandwich, seemingly so simple to someone such as you or I, appeared utterly bewildering to this woman who repeatedly would ask for toppings, look at them for a moment, frown, and request they be removed again, as if they did not meet with her expectation once they were combined with the bread.

It was about this time that a third Number 1 Bus went by, and though I would like to blame this on the slowness of the woman, I have to say that in all fairness, the last 10 minutes had passed in well under 5 according to my watch.

I looked over at the woman's male companion who was sitting nearby. He was gazing out the window with the sort of souldead, hazy expression that only appears on men who have been with this sort of woman for far too long. Meanwhile, the woman expressed concern that her sandwich was getting cold what with all this work she was having to put into ordering it, and asked if it could be microwaved one more time.

Eventually the poor woman's harrowing ordeal was over, and she paid for her sandwich in a mere 3 minutes by digging through her purse for the exact change that she was convinced existed somewhere in there. Afterwards, she carried her twice-nuked sandwich (which she eventually had decided was less offensive without any actual toppings) over to her next trial: The soft drinks fountain. She eyed it warily. Taking a cup, she put it under the lemonade dispenser and activated it for a brief spurt. She pulled quickly away from it and gazed into her cup. She looked back at the machine. She frowned suspiciously. I recognized the expression on her face as the look a cave man might give a spreadsheet. The look an Arts student gives a microwave with more than one setting. I did not get to witness her next battle with the lemonade as my Sandwich Artist asked me if I'd like to perhaps order something.

I got my first good look at my Sandwich Artist. He appeared to be of high school age from his body, but I recognized the expression on his face as the same that I wore at that age. His face had the awkward, nerdy quality that conveys a deep fear of the outside world, and all the people in it. I felt his pain. I was like this too once. Only my Sandwich Artist seemed to have a much more accute case of this social disorder than I did. He had the kind of chin stubble that suggested he still wasn't altogether comfortable with the state puberty had left him in, and that he was trying to ignore it until it went away. His left man boob advised me that my Sandwich Artist's name was Scott.

Scott spoke with the sort of slurring drawl that only we nerds seem to have. The seems to be no reason for it, unless you realize that it is because we have allowed our tongues to atrophy from lack of actual conversation, so that when we do use them, they slosh around in our mouths like a dead slug. Perhaps if he occasionally used his tongue to type, it would be more energetic, but sadly it must be said that Scott had the kind of voice that only comes out of people who have spent more than a few hours in line for Star Wars tickets.

I ordered my turkey sandwich, and Scott went to work on it. By the time most of the toppings were on, I noticed that Scott had failed to put anything at all on nearly 1/3 of my bread, so that part didn't really qualify as actual sandwich, but I realized that this was simply the way Scott was. Making sandwiches is an art, and sadly, not everyone posesses the gift. Scott would never truly be a Sandwich Artist.. this was merely a day job. He asked if there was anything else. I looked up from my sandwhich into his eyes, which seemed to be loosely fixated on something just over my left shoulder. I was about to ask for just a shake of salt and pepper, but his large, cow-like eyes told me that the poor boy had been through enough, and frankly, so had my sandwich. I told him that was fine.

"Cash or debit?" he asked. I remembered that he'd just had to deal with the change lady, and decided to make it easy on the poor boy by paying debit.

I made my way outside with 2/3 of a turkey sandwich under my arm and waited for the bus. This 10 minutes lasted for approximately 45 minutes by the standard mathematical measurement of time before my bus came. Now, by "Bus" I don't mean the standard definition of "bus" which is of course "a single bus". No, my bus came in the form of a line of four Number 1 busses, end to end. This, I hardly need tell you, is the third reason mathematicians do not visit Halifax.

I decided there was no difference which bus I took, so I settled on the first. In this case, I was wrong. There was indeed a difference, and in this case the difference was that the other 3 Number 1 busses did not break down in the middle of Spring Garden Road during rush hour. The other 3 busses honked angrily as they passed, no doubt disappointed that their pleasant convoy had been broken up. I made another decision, and that was that the walk would do me good. The air was beginning to warm, and so long as I kept to the sidewalk, the metaphysical laws of the universe would hopefully hold sway.

[Zaelath]