My Big Dumb Subway Boycott

A few weeks ago, I had a craving for Subway, so Ian graciously bought us a couple of footlongs at the Subway nearest our apartment here in Bangor. We each ate half for supper that night, and planned on the rest for lunch the next day. His club was fine, but my meatball had a little something extra in it -- a piece of plastic. I set aside the rest of the sandwich (because I didn't quite dare try eating it, in case there was more plastic in there) and the shard, which was quite small but also sharp, and filled out a complaint on their website. I also tweeted a picture of the shard to their Twitter account for good measure.

Small, but sharp. And not very appetizing.

A week passed, with no response. I made a post on their Facebook wall, and they encouraged me to file a complaint. Which, of course, I had already done. So, I made a very sarcastic and biting complaint this time. Still nothing. Another Facebook wall post led them to claim that both of my previous complaints had somehow been lost, and to encourage me to email their customer service department directly, which I did. They claimed they really wanted to make this right by me. All I wanted was an apology, and maybe a replacement for the half of a meatball sub that Ian had paid for but I didn't dare eat. I didn't even want a whole sandwich!

Within hours of sending the email, I received a phone call from their insurance company; they just wanted to make sure that I hadn't been injured or needed to seek medical assistance. In other words, they wanted to make sure I didn't sue. I told the woman on the phone that no, I didn't think I had any grounds to sue them, but I was really disappointed with the way I had been dismissed -- because I don't believe for a moment they lost my complaints. They mustn't have -- my phone number was included on those, but not the email I sent to customer service. She said she would pass along my comments, but whether she did or not remains to be seen. I haven't heard back from Subway.

I know the only reason they made that call was because they were scared. Apparently, a little girl recently suffered lacerations to her mouth, cheeks and tongue after swallowing glass found in one of their sandwiches, and they were worried about a repeat. (I also learned from this article that a foreign object that makes a food item undesirable is called a "mealbreaker." I like that word. I think I will use it the next time I accidentally make myself gag when I crunch into a tiny piece of stray egg shell in the omelette I've just made myself. You laugh, but... it's happened.)

Three weeks and not so much as an apology. How hard is it to just say "We're sorry you almost ate a piece of plastic. Here's half a sandwich to make up for the one you had to waste. It was our bad." to keep a longtime customer happy? Not hard. I worked the customer service line for [a big computer company which shall remain nameless] a while back -- we were authorized to basically give away printers and other peripherals left and right like it was going out of style, as long as it satisfied otherwise unhappy customers; if Subway can't spare six meatballs, a couple of slices of provolone and half of a roll to keep my business, then I don't think they deserve it.

EDITED TO ADD: Actually, interestingly, from the sounds of this article, it seems like they may have had me and Laura Clark, the little girl's mother, confused for a bit there. Maybe.

FURTHER EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that I should have contacted the franchise. Though the woman from the insurance company told me that the franchise had been contacted, it seems entirely possible that corporate neglected to pass along the incident.

Kitchen Dreaming

I am fantasizing about a future home -- and there are many things about this future home to fantasize -- but specifically, right now, I am dreaming about a kitchen in which the dishes I feed my boyfriend and myself off are not leftovers or castoffs from his ex-wife. The blue glass dinnerware we currently have do the trick, certainly. One cannot fault a utilitarian item such as a bowl or a plate based on its previous owner, of course, and having never met her I can't say I dislike her -- truly, from what Ian has told me so far, we shared a few hobbies in common and if I did meet her, in a different context, we might even have been friends. Still, one wants a fresh start. Something uniquely ours.

It wasn't surprising to me, when wandering through Bed Bath & Beyond with Ian early in our relationship, that we both found ourselves eyeing their Galaxy Jade dinnerware pattern. It's a striking contrast between turquoise and dark black/brown, colors that appeal to both of us. We joked that when we get married, we'd register there, and put that on our registry. That was, of course, before I lost my job and we moved in together, and a distant future wedding registry became the least of our concerns. We both try to be thrifty, though, and it didn't take long before we were searching Target and Wal*Mart to find similar but less expensive alternatives to the quite pricey but very "us" Galaxy Jade.

I will rarely opt for Wal*Mart when there are other options available, but in this case, Wal*Mart has the very similar Ocean Oasis pattern. Missing the series of 6 vertical lines through the glaze, rounder corners and smoother edges, and with a round bowl in place of the square, it appears to be an easier set of dishes to wash, though not quite quite as eclectic as the Bed Bath & Beyond version. At half the price, however, it certainly provides more value: Galaxy Jade weighs in at a hefty $79.99 for settings for four, but Ocean Oasis costs only $39.97 for 16 pieces, and there is an extra discount if you buy 32 pieces for $74 even.

They're still very striking, and unless we change our mind and find something even more "us" (or at an even better value) we will likely be purchasing the 32-piece set of Ocean Oasis at some point in the future, and I'm really glad we shopped around.

I'm starting to feel for the Myth Busters.

My New Year's resolution, made out of anger and irritation at people being angry and irritated with me, was to stop commenting on posts on Facebook that are egregiously factually inaccurate and/or sensationalist with a link to Snopes or any other similar debunking site proving it ridiculous and incorrect. It's proving harder than I thought. I love all my friends, but I am disheartened by how many of them display gullibility and lack of common sense on Facebook sometimes.

Every year, the same rumor about AAA's Tipsy Tow service goes around -- that it is a nationwide free service that will tow your car and your drunk ass home on New Year's Eve and select other holidays. It is, in fact, very selectively regional, and not available anywhere in New York or New England, where the majority of the people I see spreading the falsehood live.

Nobody is leaving fake $100 bills on windshields to carjack the drivers when they attempt to retrieve them... or at least, they weren't, but now that you've given them the idea they might! Except that that's been going around since 2004, so someone probably would have tried it by now if they were going to.

The food ones anger me even more, because they set off a panic when taken seriously. Here's the deal with onions. Biologists say it's highly implausible that onions could attract flu virus as a bug zapper traps flies. Viruses require a living host to replicate and can't propel themselves out of a body and across a room. Also, the organosulphur compounds in them scavenge oxidizing agents, inhibit the oxidation of fatty acids, thereby preventing the formation of pro-inflammatory messengers, and inhibit bacterial growth via interaction with sulphur-containing enzymes. Which also means that they're also not poisonous when you cut them and leave them in the fridge, or on the counter.


That banana baby food recall was Nestle, and it was only in France. It is not Gerber, and it is no longer applicable, and never was in the United States. Yes, baby carrots are treated with bleach, but they are rinsed thoroughly with potable water afterwards and are perfectly safe to eat. The only real thing special about them is that they're sweeter than regular carrots, due to being selectively bred for natural sugar content to appeal to children.

Wish me luck. This resolution is probably the toughest I've ever made.

Eat These Things.

I'm unable to stop thinking about food right now, so I have decided to document in this entry all the delicious things I want to make to eat, in the hopes of exorcising them from my head so I can sleep! Hopefully this will not only inspire you to make something delicious to eat tomorrow, but enable me to stop thinking about food and get some rest.

Spinach quiche.
Cream of asparagus soup.
Mushroom and sausage lasagna. Or stuffed shells. Or canneloni. I'm not picky about the format.
Creamy yogurt and fruit smoothies.
Roasted chicken with homemade gravy.
Banana pudding.
Roasted garlic and mint pesto-encrusted lamb.
Spaghetti with fist-sized homemade meatballs.
Curried squash soup.
Butternut quinoa pilaf.
Garlic-sauteed Brussels sprouts.

And, uh. Grilled cheese. I didn't say they were all gourmet.

I need a haircut. (Among other unrelated things.)

Warning: This is going to be a long one. My brain is set on random this first evening of 2013! Ian and I spent yesterday evening at my mom's, doing laundry and eating delicious things with a Doctor Who marathon (David Tennant, my second-favorite Doctor!) on in the background, which was a thoroughly enjoyable way to say goodbye to 2012. Being practically Old Marrieds already, we were home by midnight and in bed shortly thereafter, stone cold sober. I woke up with the equivalent of a hangover anyway, because though I ate like my tiny wee stomach was bottomless, I forgot to have very much to drink (apart from a root beer float) and apparently got a bit dehydrated. Once I resolved that, we took a trip to Target, which yielded four bags of half-off Christmas candy -- one bag each of mint truffle Hershey Kisses and mint chocolate M&Ms, and two bags of dark chocolate Peepsters, which are apparently tiny blobs of Peep marshmallow, dipped in dark chocolate. I look forward to investigating those later.

I also used part of the Starbucks gift card my sister gave me for Christmas -- more on Christmas in a moment -- to buy an iced green tea latte with raspberry syrup (my favorite Starbucks beverage, with the possible seasonal exception of a pumpkin spice steamer) and a bottle of the raspberry syrup used in its production. I'm going to pick up some matcha soon, so I can make them at home. Ian ordered a salted caramel mocha, but the guy at the counter discovered -- belatedly -- that he was out of the sea salt topping, so he gave him what was, essentially, a toffee nut mocha on the house rather than dump it out. He also gave me a pump with the bottle of syrup I purchased, AND was the first employee at that location to ever make me drink correctly, so he gets major points for awesome customer service. I've probably mentioned before that I'm Starbucks trained, so I already know how it's done... I can hardly wait to be able to make my favorite drink at home!

Okay, back to Christmas. Ian and I had a fantastic Christmas; we spent the afternoon/evening before Christmas at my Mom's house in Windsor with her, my sister and my aunt. I wasn't expecting much because my mom had given me new snow tires a couple of months ago, but I can honestly say we both got spoiled. From there, we headed to Ian's folks' in Rumford where we spent the night. The morning was an enjoyable immediate family thing, like I am used to, with the two of us, his parents and his sister, and we were spoiled yet again. After that, we headed to his grandmother's. I was surprised and touched to receive a gift from her, warm gloves and a lovely scarf, having never met her before!

I grew up with no grandparents and no extended family living nearby (until my aunt moved to Maine after her husband passed away) so the concept of a Christmas with several stops to it was foreign to me. After we left his grandmother's house (with her in tow) it was a big, extended family do with aunts, uncles and cousins. Okay, so it wasn't quite as big as that, but to me -- who had only ever had 5 people at Christmas counting myself -- it was huge! There was a bountiful spread, and lots of delicious things to eat, including -- among other things -- two different veggie casseroles, a ham AND a chicken, and a French (or maybe Franco American) meat stuffing that was very interesting (and tasty!) made by none other than Ian's grandmother.

As we made our way home to Bangor, stuffed to the gills, I couldn't help commenting how much I love his family. I felt so completely welcomed, and they are such warm and friendly people, that I can't imagine not wanting to spend every Christmas like that, even if all that driving is a little maddening!

Oh! The hair. I keep looking in the mirror and thinking that I need a haircut. I've stopped bleaching my hair for a number of reasons (living an hour away from my mom and even further from my friends who used to help me with my roots being one of them, and being unemployed being another) and so I have a sort of weird, two-tone thing going on right now. At the same time, I don't really want to let go of Blonde Fia. I like her too much to see her golden locks on the floor, or in the wastebasket, just yet.

Ian and I signed up for a year at our local Planet Fitness this weekend, and we're beginning tomorrow after he gets home from work. Nothing fancy... my plan is to rock out twenty minutes on the treadmill and then do ten or so on the various arm-strengthening machines. I need to find some clothes (pants especially) suitable for winter gym-going, though, and my current wardrobe is in a state of disarray. If I change there (like you're supposed to,) I might be able to get away with wearing my yoga capris, which are close at hand.

I think that's everything I wanted to share/get off my chest/ramble about for today. Ian and our roommate Owen are at a friend's house this evening, and I stayed home with the intention of going to bed early after being miserable for most of the day, but we can all see how well that worked out for me.

Santa is a Time Lord

I've always had a little trouble with the whole Santa thing, but as a child who was brought up on British sci-fi like Red Dwarf (supper tonight was chicken vindaloo with poppadoms) and Doctor Who, I found it much easier to swallow once the theory was posed to me that Santa Claus was actually a Time Lord. It makes total sense, and for nerdy families, this provides a perfectly good set of answers to the questions that doubting children pose as the magic of Christmas begins to lose its hold on them.

First of all, Santa visits every home (in which there is at least one child) in the entire world in a single night. Even with time zones, there's just no way he could pull that off in 24 hours without the aid of a little time travel. If his sleigh is, in fact, a TARDIS, he can easily take as much time as he needs to at each house, putting presents under the tree, stuffing stockings, and partaking of a little milk and cookies as he goes.

The TARDIS also removes the second biggest hole in Santa's story: how the heck does he fit all those gifts for all those girls and boys in his sleigh? Easy: it's bigger on the inside. The TARDIS we're used to seeing (the Doctor's) has a faulty chameleon circuit, and has been stuck in the form of a blue police call box as long as we can remember, but there's no reason Santa couldn't make his appear as a sleigh drawn by eight (or nine, if you're counting Rudolph) reindeer.

Another point: I don't know about you, but I didn't have a chimney growing up. I lived in a mobile home with an oil-burning furnace, and I always wondered how exactly Santa got in, when I knew my parents locked the doors at night. This answer works just as well for children who live in apartments or any other home that has no chimney: he probably lets himself in with his sonic screwdriver.

This is what I'm going to tell my children when they ask me how the magic of Santa Claus can be possible, and if I've done my job right, they'll be as pleased with this theory as I am.

(Edited to add: If you Google "Santa is a Time Lord," you will find a number of treatises on the subject that probably make my point even more eloquently than I, and in greater detail.)

The job search continues.

December is almost gone and the holidays are upon us. It continues to irritate me that out of 40+ job applications and resumes I've submitted, only one so far has had the decency to dash off a quick email letting me know they'd gone with someone else -- and now they're advertising for the same position again. I'm frustrated beyond words, in debt to my mother for my car payment, and at my wit's end trying to find something to bring in a little money to cover my bills. Ian (my fabulous boyfriend) says that nobody's hiring right now; I say if they're not hiring, they should stop advertising positions.

My telephone unemployment hearing is still two weeks away; that seems ridiculous to me, because I've been unemployed for six weeks now. How can they justify making you wait two months for assistance? Don't they realize that someone less fortunate than me, who doesn't have a place they can live rent-free in the meanwhile, or someone willing to feed them, could end up hungry and on the street in considerably less than eight weeks? As it is, I'm not sure I'll have a phone for them to call me on when my hearing date arrives, because I can't pay my phone bill with my good looks.

Presumably it was their hope (as it was mine) that I would find a new job quickly and wouldn't require their help, but unfortunately that hasn't been the case. My previous employer, when firing me for no good reason, commented that there were lots of jobs available and she was sure I would find something right away. What a joke.

Though I am bitter at my failure to secure employment and at being unable to buy gifts for my family and friends again this holiday season, I am excited for the holidays with my family and Ian's. I just hope Santa brings me a job soon.