1265 Crusty Nozzle

So I was in a sandwich shop the other day. I won’t mention the name of the chain. Suffice it to say they’ve recently bullied small sandwich and hot dog purveyors for using the term footlong.
Forget for a moment that those other places have used the term footlong since before said sandwich shop stole their own name from an underground mass transit system.
I was taken by some of the changes when I went in and ordered a sandwich of the aforementioned footlong variety. They no longer slice a V into the top of the bread. They cut it in half. They offer pepper-jack cheese, and four different kinds of flavored bread.
One thing hasn’t changed much. Their hygiene. Their meat and vegetable products can only be accessed by moving aside lids. Which is time consuming, but good.
Perhaps that’s why they try to save some time by pre-slicing their meat. Time is money, and at a rate of 5 bucks a footlong how much money do you think they need to save?
Sounds like a story problem from math.
Still, when we got to the end of the sandwich line, I was a little dismayed. In the old days they put mustard and mayo on first. Now they squeeze on whatever sauce you want last. And they squeeze it from plastic bottles.
The bottoms of the bottles sit in a refrigerated well. The room temperature tops of the bottles have wide nozzles through which the sauce passes. Or doesn’t for a while and gets, um, crusty.
My advice? Ask first which sauce is most popular and order it. Then you won’t get a footlong of disgust like me.
Nothing dampens the appetite like a congealed clump from a crusty nozzle.
America, ya gotta love it.