Debate: Subway

By Jake & Glenn 

The fast food submarine (AKA: hoagie, grinder and hero) sandwich shop Subway has long been a point of contention between Glenn and myself. As a gift he once received $1,000,000 worth of Subway gift certificates and ate at Subway for nearly every meal. Although he was a gift card millionaire, his personal finances were not so robust. His only choices were to eat at Subway or pick rotten fruits and vegetables out of the heaps of trash lining Missouri's streets. Now Glenn has become a successful entrepreneur and has the resources to eat at more upscale nosheries like Quiznos. I grew up dining at Subway, and my childhood eating habits have stuck with me. Subway is an integral part of my life, much like alcohol and heroin are to yours. Now, here's the debate:

Jake: While I rarely eat at restaurants, and practically never eat fast food, I have to say that Subway is by far the best restaurant on Earth. They have many fine choices, which is more than I can say about Little Caesar's (which has only three choices: cheese, sausage and pepperoni). As a pescatarian, I have limited choices at nearly every restaurant which I dine, so for Subway to have even two choices for me is jaw-dropping--and they have three (seafood, veggie and tuna)! Let us not forget that Subway also lets you choose what goes on your sandwich while the sandwich crafters assemble it. It gives you all the benefits of making your own sandwich without any of the hard work and you get a conversation. Better yet, the discussion is mostly one sided with you bossing around the teen around while they listlessly make your grinder. Whenever I feel like I have lost control of my life, I like to imagine myself at Subway demanding some teenage girl to add more tomatoes to my sandwich, even if it is more tomatoes than common sense should allow, and she can't say anything to me because I'm the customer and I'm always right. No other restaurant fills you with that sense of power while having you do so little work.

Glenn: I'm completely in favor of dominating teenage girls, but good luck on getting more tomatoes on that sandwich. Those girls, and the rest of the underclass who comprise Subway's work force, receive strict instructions on how many tomatoes to give to slack-jawed idiots who came in looking for a "sammich." You can ask for more tomatoes in the same way we can ask for god's forgiveness and you'll get the same result: nothing. I too recognize the appeal of a veggie delight sandwich. Unlike my opponent, I am fully committed to animal rights and will not rest until animals can serve alongside me in the United Stated Armed Forces or in the jury box during a celebrity's criminal trial. This means I do not eat them. If I walked into a Subway with a plan to order a veggie delight, I would be shocked to see live animals in their backroom being murdered by undocumented workers from Mexico and other countries below the United States. Subway serves only the freshest meat, which means the stench of death permeates the air. The decor matches this stench, as most Subways look horrendous from the outside and inside. As a gay man with an eye for interior decorating, I would like to redesign all Subways.

Jake: I agree with you to a degree about the decor. The inside of Subway has not been updated since I was a child eating steak and cheese subs. Now that I am an unsuccessful adult, I mainly enjoy dining in ultra-modern eateries. Yet, there is a charm to the ornamentation of the innards of Subway that takes me back to the days where I could do anything with my life instead of nothing. In a way, eating at Subway is a substitute for the anti-depressants I so desperately need but cannot seem to afford no matter how much plasma I sell.

I also agree that Subway uses only the freshest of ingredients, and unlike you I see this as a positive. I enjoy eating fresh food, which is why I have an herb garden. Much like Subway, gardening gives me the solace that I cannot seem to find in a bottle or needle. I would actually go as far to say that instead of giving junkies methadone, we should just take them to Subway. Afterall, it worked for Jared.

Glenn: I'm glad you brought up Jared. What a fucking phony. He's going around telling everyone he got thin because of Subway, but he never mentions the fact that he had his stomach stapled as well. Surely eating a veggie delight helps you lose some weight, but not as much as whatever it means to have your "stomach stapled." Subway was one of the few restaurants allowed on the island of Guatanamo Bay in Cuba and I understand why. Subway's food does to my stomach what Presidents Bush and Obama have done, using that island, to the rule of law in this country. One time I ate a Subway sandwich and then woke up in Yemen while imprisoned. And this was under Obama! Losing my civil liberties doesn't taste good and neither does much of Subway's bread, which is as stale as Paula Poundstone's comedy routine. At Subway I usually ask for a "little" lite mayonnaise but end up with so much that I can barely force myself to eat the sandwich. But at least I'm still eating, unlike the prisoners at Guantanamo who went on a hunger strike to protest their conditions. I'm not that brave.

Jake: Whoa, I think you are taking this a bit too far. I know that if I could not eat Subway I would commit suicide by lighting myself on fire and suffocating from all of the oxygen in my lungs burning away. Subway simply makes life tolerable. Whenever my boss yells at me for misfiling the Johnson report (this is a euphemism for accidental and unintentional anal sex), I picture a 12 inch submarine sandwich from Subway sliding down my throat--and the mayonnaise is the lubricant that allows this to happen. The teen sandwich creator probably thinks your request for a "little lite mayonnaise" was a comedy bit, because who would want just a little of anything? I always order the largest size of everything I purchase, which sometimes can be a problem when it comes to buying $800 suits, but is amazing when I'm watching the latest hit movies on an IMAX screen. Doing things in moderation is for people who think small. My motto/mantra is: think big, live big, live forever. Subway is just one peg in that plan, but if you removed it, my life would topple over like a Jenga board during Michael J. Fox's turn.

Glenn: Insults towards Parkinson's victims aside, you have revealed the reason you stand so adamantly in defense of Subway: their footlong sandwiches. Spending $5.00 for twelve inches of food might sound good in theory and the growing corporate profits of Subway certainly indicate people's willingness to participate in such a program. However, we must keep in mind how many better sandwiches are available in this great country and not let the five dollar price tag blind us like NY Governor David Patterson. Off the top of my head, I can name three better sandwich places than Subway. They are W.G. Grinder's, Quizno's and Blimpie's. The last time I was at Blimpie's, I got a delicious "blimp" sandwich, with vegetables as exotic as avocado and squash. The last time I saw an avocado at a Subway, he/she was ordering a veggie delight ("avocado" is a new slur for hermaphrodites). Afterward I was fellated in the bathroom by a male Blimpie's employee. I've never been fellated in a Subway by a man or woman and wouldn't want such a beautiful act to happen in their disgusting bathrooms. Fuck Subway and fuck the thousand sandwiches I've eaten there since November 2008.