Based on an experience I had today where I ate a large portion of a sandwich that I thought SURELY couldn’t be bologna and then DEFINITELY was, I wanted to ask a very important ques create a handy guide to help you determine whether your sandwich is bologna or not. If you answer Yes to any of the following, stop eating immediately. Unless we’re talking fried bologna and you’re the bass guitar player for a southern rock outfit. Then by all means, fly high, free bird.
Subway restaurants have been doing me wrong for a long time now. Ever since they replaced the bizarre underground subway train art with the weird circular tubes and the matching circular trains, ever since those were replaced with giant photographs of vegetables, I’ve had concerns. In fact, I suspect that those pictures are a trick to make us think we’re eating foods when in reality we’re eating…well, let’s put the wild speculation aside for a moment because this gripe is real.
I was eating a sub purchased by someone else, and a few bites in I was thinking, “Fuck, this ham is shitty. It almost tastes like bologna. They don’t have that, right?”
The next step was consulting a friend, but let’s face it, I already knew. Like a soldier in a WWII movie who keeps asking if his leg is all right after he watched the thing get run over by a Panzer, I couldn’t help but ask someone, “Hey, is this bologna?”
We ended up doing a Google search to confirm whether or not Subway offers these discs. And you know what? They do. Sort of.
If you decide to treat yourself to a cold cut combo, you will be delighted by the combination of turkey, ham, and then horrified by the inclusion of bologna. These three things go together as merrily as Larry, Curly, and a giant severed penis who can talk from his peehole and uses up good stoogin’ time to discuss international finance.
Now who, I ask, is walking into a Subway and asking for bologna. I can think of only a few parties for whom this is appropriate:
-If you are the bass player for a hard-charging southern rock outfit, by all means.
-If you are a grizzled old man who orders a bologna sandwich and hot coffee for lunch at 10:30 AM, you get a pass too.
-Finally, if you have some bizarre nostalgia for these discs, then you’re also cleared, but just try and keep your bologna time for less crowded hours when it’s unlikely families with children will be present.
The one plus, I did come up with a scientific principle that I’m calling the Derk Principle. So sorry, other people in my family who were FAR more likely to discover something actually scientific. The Derk Principle goes like this:
IF:
You are unsure whether or not you are eating bologna
THEN:
You are definitely, for sure, eating bologna.
I’ve tested this. In my own lab that’s attached to my goddamn face. And let me tell you, you never suspect bologna on the field when there’s none around. So when you suspect, go with your gut. And by that I mean don’t make the mistake I made and finish the sandwich out of spite.
On the other hand, if I didn’t do any spite eating, I’d have wasted away long ago. So if it’s spite keep going, but otherwise put the “sandwich” down and step away.