Airing of Grievances: You Are a Loser For Not Eating the Walgreens Sandwich!
All grievances are valid, even when they are aimed at yours truly…
Photo courtesy of Blondie and Brownie
I was hoping that my post about not eating the sandwiches at Walgreens after being dared by a reader would elicit sympathy from the Midtown Lunch commenters… but clearly not. I thought turning my nose up at shrink wrapped sandwiches, shipped from Massachusetts to giant pharmacies would increase my cred- not destroy it! Boy was I wrong…
You buy food from anonymous unlicensed people standing on the street selling shit illegally that they made in their home with no idea about the sanitation, storage, source ingredients or skill….people who just randomly show up on a sidewalk every now and then with a stack of styrofoam containers…..and you balk at sandwiches made by a company that is accountable to health inspectors and other governmental agencies, giant corporate customers (Walgreens in this case) not to mention shareholders/investors. ???????????? Obviously a company can screw up just as easily as an individual, but your risk/reward paradigm has gotten severely messed up. -Ben
Yes! Exactly! In fact, when you consider what the Government allows our corporations to get away with-and conversely, the hoops they force street vendors to jump through- I am much more comfortable eating street meat. Not to mention, I didn’t welsh on the dare because I was afraid of getting sick, I welshed because the sandwiches had no chance of being something Midtown Lunch readers would want to eat.
Or so I thought…
Both Wined & Dined and Blondie and Brownie capitalized on my moral outrage failings as a self-proclaimed fat man, and tried the Walgreens sandwiches for themselves- to much fanfare in the comments:
You’re good ppl by me. That turkey sub doesn’t look bad at all. And for 4 bucks, that’s a steal. The burger looks weak, and I know you only bought it for shock value, but a job well done. We can chill anytime. You’ve got yourself a new fan.
Zach, you are on thin ice. Step up to the challenge and reclaim some dignity. When I first saw this site, you totally transformed the way I think about midtwon lunch. I never once tried Street Meat and now I eat it 2-3 days a week. Biryani Kart and Kwik Meal are my favorite places to eat. I get Indian buffet and food from a news stand because you told me to. There were two mottos: lunch under $10 and have an open mind.
Restore our faith in you and eat a sandwich. Please, for the sake of midtown-lunchers everywhere. I’ll gladly come with you for moral support if you want. Sincerely, DougieC
Dougie C, how did we let it get to this point? Were there signs that something has been wrong for awhile, or was it just a switch that turned off inside your heart? Damnit, I should have just eaten the damn sandwich…
Wait… no! I don’t feel bad… I didn’t not eat the sandwich because I was scared. I didn’t eat the sandwich because it was assembled and produced by a company outside of New York, and shrink wrapped before being shipped to Midtown. What am I saying is, these sandwiches would survive a nuclear holocaust. There was no way this was going to be a legitimate Midtown Lunch, and to even mention them in the same breath as Biryani Cart or Kwik Meal is terrible!
Shrink wrap is where i draw the line people… I think it takes these sandwiches even out of the 7-11/gas station sandwich category, and makes it more like a frozen dinner or something. Should I start writing about Stouffer’s, if they are sold in Midtown delis? Is there nobody who will sympathize with my decision!
I’m sorry if I’ve let you some of you down… but lucky for you, there are other blogs that seem willing to take up the “gross pre-packaged sandwich” beat! Sorry, I just can’t do it. (Gross pre-packaged Asian food, maybe. But sandwiches? No thanks.) Hopefully I won’t have to turn in my ‘fat guy’ membership card. Could I redeem myself by eating a Tad’s Steak, sandwiched between two fried fish sandwiches from the Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart? And then we can never speak of this again. I’ll even drink the saran wrapped wine, if it will make you love me once again…
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:30 am, January 23rd, 2009 under Airing of Grievances, Dare.
64 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
64 Comments
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To the Big Z, at first I thought I was going to knock you for chickening out on the dare but after reading the following description of the “Beantown Deli” products on this corporate site, I have to admit you made the right decision.
http://www.garberbros.com/programs.cfm
According to the site, it’s not food, it’s a ‘“fresh made sandwich and salad” program’.
Their quotes around the words ‘fresh made sandwich and salad’ not mine.
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Goats
Would that Make it a Ritz Shitz Cracker?
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Remember how every post for the first week of the year got about 2 comments each?
I’m starting to think this was all an engineered stunt by Zach to rev up readership.
He is the David Blaine of street food
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Mamacita! Where we going today???? Surely you won’t hold a childish prank I pulled 16 yrs ago against me now???? I mean, it’s not like I threw pee on someone—-oh wait—that was 19 yrs ago….You see, freshman year of high school…..I had this neighbor who used to throw plums at my friends…..AND……
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Good one Rudy! Unfortunately, I think it was a saltine, not a ritz—or was it a townhouse??? LOL
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Hey Dubya E! — if you were more open and transparent, you would have included the rest of the quote from the Beantown website: “Our products are delivered fresh to you and deliver the quality and taste to keep customers coming back for more.” Just like the Starbucks food isn’t made on site — which although may not be your favorite, is decent and most would not fuss about at least trying — it is delivered regularly to ensure freshness and quality. Please at least try the turkey sandwich.
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Goats, that is disgusting. Quite possibly the second most disgusting thing i’ve heard all week.
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Sandwich is one thing… but a double cheeseburger “bulkie” would be where i draw the line… Burgers do NOT get microwaved… Bulkie sounds like what i’d call the aftermath of eating one of those things… This has been some dilemma… eat it? dont eat it?
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This charade needs to end. Eat the sandwich and be done with it!
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I agree with Pickled Herring that Zach gets off on a technicality. This blog is called “Midtown Lunch,” and it seems likely that this sandwich was not assembled is midtown. Like Zach said, is he supposed to start eating Stouffers? Also, it’s not even *that* disgusting, so it’s kind of a stupid dare. Of course, that just begs the question of why Zach doesn’t just eat it to shut everyone up. After all, it will only set him back $4.
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I’m so eff’n angry. Right now I could care less about the economy, wars or melting ice caps. Look, there’s only three “nevers” in this life: never get suckered into Wednesday sushi specials, never ride Greyhound and never go camping with Burt Reynolds. Put the damn sandwich on a plate, put a homemade sandwich next to it and rock a public taste-off…chances are you won’t know the gd difference. Eat…the…ef’n…sandwich!
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Stan, a fair point, I stand corrected.
I was just so amused by the quotes around the earlier terms, I ignored the rest.
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Howard, I will add your nevers to the the following nevers I try to live life by from the Princess Bride
Vizzini: “The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”
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@Dubya – I wonder if Wallace Shawn was talking about the sicilian sub from Walgreens
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Zach, LOL!
Maybe you and Wallace Shawn can star in a sequel to My Dinner with Andre, aka My Midtown Lunch with Zach, where you can debate the nature of a midtown lunch and whether a bulkie is just a kaiser roll without the seeds.
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Like I said before, my wife was willing to eat dog feces for the sake of her perfoming career. I am told Jane Stern might, too, in certain circumstances.
It seems like the least you can do to eat that “burger” from Walgreens.
Man Up, Zach.
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Dubya El gets two points for mentioning Princess Bride.
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wait wait– people don’t call it a bulkie roll elsewhere? This is like when I learned you could only get brown bread in a can in New England. I am *shocked*
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yeah im sorry but im gonna have to side with the DONT BE WEAK people.
GOATS, that was gross. I am no long stalking you! ewww