High Maintenance

I love that I live in a country with options and choices, but I love efficiency too. Fast food restaurants have long employed the meal system, significantly speeding up the time spent waiting in line. You can look at photos of various combinations of sandwiches, sides, and drinks, and choose by number. You have the right to pick and choose individually and customize, but it's nice to have starting points so the choice isn't overwhelming. These days, this system isn't limited to fast food. You can walk into any chain restaurant, deli, or ethnic cuisine place and let them know a #7 will be great today.

My new favorite deli offers 64 different options, though I once thought the list reached 99. I was probably thinking of balloons. Even at 64 I'm glad it's a popular place, because the line gives me time to decide, and I usually change my mind two or three times before it's my turn. The one option on the board is bread or a wrap, and I always wrap before I roll because it's healthier. Yes, even if it is packed with bacon, roast beef, cheese, and an atomic red barbecue sauce, I'm confident that flatbread over a hero makes all the difference in calories.

Obviously, no one has to order from the board. It is a deli, and you can simply look in the glass display and come up with your own creation. But 64 covers a lot of permutations of beef, chicken, bacon, ham, various cheeses, various sauces, various vegetables, and more. Somehow, I've settled in to about eight favorites, and on more than one occasion I've decided to try something “new” only to realize I'd had it before once I took a bite.

Suffice to say, the same ritual occurred on Monday, but before I could make my order I had to make it through a particularly long line. I had narrowed my numbers down to three sandwiches while listening to the mundane conversation of the young couple in front of me discussing the most geographically advantageous place to live if you wanted to party. There's a lot to consider, finding the best neighborhood that would allow one to keep an automobile but still have a short train or cab ride in to Manhattan. The girl agreed with the guy's conclusions, while I thought about how “rough” it must be to be in your early 20s. Should I have told them that life gets easier?

“Who's next?” asked one of the guys behind the counter. The young man pondering apartment locations was much more decisive about his lunch, and quickly threw out a number before resuming his conversation with his lady friend. Meanwhile, another worker was freed up and it was time for the girl to order. Without looking up at the board, and speaking quickly, she began describing a very specific kind of sandwich. She wanted this kind of meat, with just this much dressing. “Not too much but not too little.” She wanted this kind of bread...”no...no this kind. What is this one? Okay, I'll have this.” Then came the lettuce. “Do you have like different kinds of lettuce, like mixed greens, like you know not just regular lettuce but like a variety of lettuce?” The man, looking exhausted, turned around, searching for a piece of paper. Finding one, and a pen, he put it on the counter and asked her to repeat it. She apologized for the complexity and in a single breath ran through all the ingredients of the sandwich she was inventing on the spot, even though there were 64 preexisting combinations she could have ordered and modified if need be. He was still writing when another worker finished an order and asked what I wanted.

“52 onna wrap?”

“52 onna wrap? You got it.”

I love the freedom of choice, and the efficiency of numbered options. I'd rather spend more time eating, relaxing, and just thinking on my lunch break than standing at the counter.

“Is that for here or to go?” asked the girl's helper. “Oh to go; I have to get back to work.”

I wonder where the time went...