Hendricks County Flyer, Avon, IN

Commentary

February 15, 2013

This sandwich is sub-standard

Nothing annoys me more than a poorly written, peppy commercial jingle that has a tendency to get stuck in your head. Actually, a lot of things annoy me more, but I didn't want to bother you with a list where commercial jingles fall somewhere between cat pictures with captions like, "I iz cute!" and that little animated phlegm guy on the Mucinex commercials. So for the sake of this article, let's just say the jingles annoy me the most.

In fact, the jingles annoy me so much that I swore off Subway sandwiches several years ago when they started the "Five Dollar Foot Long" jingle. Also, I think their food is disgusting, with very little meat (that is tasteless anyway so it doesn't matter that much), slimy vegetables, too much mayonnaise and soggy bread. So in hindsight, it wasn't that hard to swear off of the stuff. But I digress.

It was the jingle that was the final straw. It repeats the phrase, "Five--Five Dollar--Five Dollar Foot-looooooong!" over and over for thirty seconds; just long enough for it to eat it's way into your brain so that 3 hours later while you're sitting at your desk trying to get some work done, you find yourself humming the peppy tune while you compulsively type, "Five-Five Dollar-Five Dollar Footlooooooong!" over and over and over. Then you stand like a zombie and slowly stagger down the road to the nearest Subway and order a slimy foot-long sandwich with approximately .5 ounces of tasteless meat and 6 ounces of mayonnaise.

So I guess you could say the commercial works. However, now Subway is under scrutiny because it seems those so-called "foot-longs" are not. A few weeks ago, an Australian teen measured his "foot-long" Subway sandwich and posted a picture online showing it to be only 11 inches long. The photo went viral, (Note: The phrase "going viral" also annoys me - it falls a little below the Mucinex guy on my list), and people across the country started measuring their Subway foot-longs. This being America, they did what Americans do and saw dollar signs. They filed lawsuits seeking damages over the missing inch. For example, one man in New Jersey is seeking nearly $5 million in damages. Apparently they called in several high level mathematicians to calculate a formula that ended with: 1 inch = $5 million. Either that or this is a case that proves eating too much mayonnaise and soggy bread can destroy your ability to think beyond the level of a moron.

Attorneys are hoping that all the cases being filed can be combined and taken to federal court. If you get a chance, go online and check out the other cases pending in federal court. It's fascinating.

Ha ha! I'm kidding, of course. The Subway case should fit in nicely with the rest them.

There is one good thing that may come out of all of this. Subway may be forced to stop calling their sandwiches foot-longs and may have to raise the price due to the hefty pay-out they may have to make for the lawsuits. That's good news for me because that would mean the end of the jingle.

Either that or I'm going to have to walk around with, "Six dollars - six dollars and fifty cents - six dollars and fifty cents for an 11 inch sandwiiiiiich," going through my head.

- Rebecca Todd is a freelance writer and the author of the book "What's the Point?" available at booklocker.com. Contact her at btodd@tds.net.

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