When Subway Matters

I haven't been sure what to write since returning home to Oahu some twenty-three days ago. I actually haven't been very sure of anything, to be honest. Coherent thoughts have not been my forte. Neither has staying focused, motivated, or even remotely interested in anything for very long. At first I blamed it on the jetlag. Perfect scapegoat, that jetlag. It is scientific, hard to debate, and besides, it just made sense to everyone (including me). For several days after arriving home, I would need a power nap around 4pm. Sometimes those power naps turned into three or four hour extravaganzas. Oh well. It's just jetlag. Don't worry. No other explanation necessary. See how easy that was?

Eventually I realized that my body was back on Hawaii time. However, things were still not quite right. I wasn't feeling anything. For me, that is the ultimate warning sign of trouble. I had my moments, but for some reason or another, I could never quite sustain any momentum. I started to feel a bit schizophrenic, depressed even. I wasn't working yet, which was just fine with me. But I had no idea what to do with myself.

When I was galivanting around Europe, I never thought twice about what to do with my time. Never! I just went around, living. Yet for some reason, i was finding it downright irksome and nearly impossible to do that very same thing here at home. I decided that maybe jetlag had turned into a little bit of a new disease of sorts, one which I began referring to in my mind as lifelag. Who knew how long lifelag would last, I wondered to myself. It could last a minute or forever, and with no empirical data to even support its existence, I simply began taking notice of its various symptoms.

Feeling of total disconnection with surroundings--check! Feeling disgusted with things that used to provide much animation--check! Longing for newness and scornful of anything else--check!

This lifelag thing was beginning to take a toll. I had developed a total disrespect for everything that wasn't brand new or wildly amusing. And if it was all highly Americanized, well, that just made the lifelag even worse. Being back in the USA, I knew I would come face to face with this dreaded non-disease at some point, and probably sooner than later. It happened eventually--in a friendly neighborhood Subway of all places. I strolled into everyone's favorite sandwich shop (yeah right) and ordered myself an egg and cheese omelette thingy. (Calling it a sub is like a disservice to real subs all across the globe, so 'thingy' it is.) Anyhow, severe lifelag had set in by the time I sat down at the sanitized yellow table, ready to dig in to another fantastically mediocre Subway meal, which by the way was my first in over four months. I stared blankly at the specimen in front of me, unable to even take it out of its temporary plastic home. "Eat fresh" my ass, I thought. What a crock. Eventually I unwrapped it and took a small bite. It was tasteless in the way that everything from Subway always is, except for the obvious heavy-handed presence of salt. What I was expecting, I have no idea. It was Subway for heaven's sake, and it was exactly as I remembered it, only that familiarity was now breeding a contempt of the highest order. It was most definitely not a Spanish boccadillo, or a French baguette, or an Italian panini. It certainly didn't taste like anything I had eaten in Europe. Nothing exotic here, folks. Oh hell no. This thingy tasted like America at its worst.

So now the lifelag was at a fever pitch, hitting its high-pitched crescendo right there in the middle of Subway Store # 22,386. I decided that angrily smearing the flimsy, overprocessed thingy against the wall was indeed bad form, so I did what anyone else would have done while in such a desperate state--I took a picture of this disaster in front of me and texted it to a couple of friends along with the tagline, "This is NOT a boccadillo!" A few minutes after I sent that message, chomping bite after bite of that same egg and cheese omelette, I began to see how insufferable my own behavior had become. Lifelag was solely my creation, it was keeping me totally miserable, and right there in the middle of America's #1 chain restaurant I decided I was sick of feeling like this.   No more whiny denial.  I was home.  I had to deal with it.  Stopping the insanity long enough to actually taste I was eating, I recognized that it was a bland and salty sandwich for sure, but far from the inedible pile of poo I was making it out to be. Besides, nobody had forced it on me. It was my choice, and like it or not, on that day it was lunch. I no longer wanted to vomit at the sight of it or hurl it across the room. In fact, I relaxed into the rest of my meal. Each bite was somewhat better than the previous one.  Nothing tremendous, but then why did it have to be?  Before it was gone, I even started to appreciate the (gulp) freshness of the tomatoes and peppers piled on top. Fine. I begrudgingly admitted that maybe I was eating a little fresh after all.

I hadn't given this whole episode much thought, until yesterday that is. I went back to the scene of the crime and ordered the exact same sandwich. I recognized the woman tossing the vegetables onto the bread per my instruction. She was my favorite Sandwich Artist, a petite middle-aged Asian woman who is always smiling. As she dressed my order, she looked into my eyes. Of course, there was that smile of hers. I smiled back. We exchanged simple pleasantries. This time, I felt no signs of lifelag or any other (real or imaginary) deficiencies surfacing. At the register, she ran my debit card through the machine. Then she cheerfully flung a small, delicious-looking chocolate chip cookie into a little white bag, delivering it along with my egg and cheese omelette thingy. A free cookie. Sweet.

I sat down at the same yellow table as before. I ate the whole sandwich. It was mediocre, and it met my expectations. Next I polished off the cookie. It was delicious. I hadn't even wanted one, but there it was, and I was grateful for it. Just a few days before, a pile of those cookies would not have caused me to bat an eyelash. Their presence would only have caused me to wonder where my Italian gelato was, or my French pain au chocolat, or some other delicious sweet European morsel that was now but a memory. Not this visit. I accepted that chocolate chip cookie on its own terms. It was a gift. It came with no expectations. As I approached the door to exit, I turned and saw my favorite Subway lady smiling and waving goodbye to me. I mirrored her actions, then stepped out into the sunshine of another day, rather satisfied.

I won't say that I'm completely over all the symptoms of lifelag just yet. But I'm getting there. Adjustments are hard. Change is almost always difficult, even when it's for the best. And lifelag might not be real, but its cure sure is. Eating fresh is just a state of mind. Good thing we have all those Subways around in America to remind us.