Yesterday, the writers went to Subway for lunch.
About a month ago, during their Scrabble promotion, I won a coupon for a free “Flatbread or Regular 6″ Sub.”
Note the order of the words. We will come back to this.
I ordered a Subway Melt Flatbread. It had bacon on it, and I’m not a fan of bacon, really, but I wanted to try something different. Ham and turkey and bacon. Lettuce and onion and tomato and honey mustard sauce. All on a flatbread. Lunchtime perfection, I thought.
The manager of the store told me that I could not use my Scrabble coupon. “I can’t accept this. It has to be a regular flatbread. The Subway Melt is a premium flatbread.”
I looked at him blankly. “So?”
“It has to be a regular flatbread.”
“That’s not what the coupon says.”
“Yes, it does. It says ‘regular’ here.”
“It says ‘regular 6” sub.’ It says nothing about the flatbread.”
“It has to be a regular sub.”
“It’s not a regular sub. It’s a flatbread. I get that if I wanted a sub for free, I’d have to get a regular sub. But the coupon says ‘flatbread.’ It doesn’t say ‘regular flatbread.’ It doesn’t say ‘premium flatbread.’ It just says ‘flatbread.'” And I read aloud the wording of the coupon — “Flatbread or Regular 6″ Sub.”
Don’t quibble with me, I’m a writer, and I will beat you to an incoherent pulp with words.
I got the sub, not for free, but for a dollar, which was the difference in price between a Premium Flatbread and a Regular Flatbread. Which, considering he wasn’t going to take a coupon at all, was a minor victory.
I didn’t even know there was a difference, that Subway had “tiers.” Of course, every time I go in Subway, it seems like they have a new pricing structure. It makes eating fresh difficult.