Precision Fast Food

There is a convenience store chain where I live that makes great hoagies to order. Before I go on, I should probably explain that a hoagie is a sandwich made on a long roll. In other parts of the country they are called subs or heroes and probably other things I haven't heard of yet. Placing your order is a lot like playing a video game and the company keeps you on your toes by continually adding new items and rearranging everything on the screen. I'm exaggerating, of course. Ordering on the touch screen is a breeze, if you have a lot of time to spare, or intuitively understand how the mind of a computer programmer works. The computer sends the order to the people behind the counter and they always tape the little tab that comes out of the machine on the wrapped up sandwich. This is very helpful if you have more than one order. It can be very messy opening up a series of hoagies and having the various toppings dislodge. No one's happy when you have to stuff their fixings back into the roll before handing it over. This winter we had bought lunch for four people and my husband started reading the tab on one of the sandwiches. It sounded ridiculous and I took it from him, convinced he was making it up. He wasn't. The little tab, three inches wide and as long as it took to print the order, was now very detailed. It didn't just tell the preparer what ingredients were ordered. It told them where they went. So the employee opens the correct size roll (there are three) on the work area. Next they read that the honey mustard goes on the top portion of the roll. Then two slices of Swiss cheese go on the bottom, followed by the oven roasted turkey. Okay so far. Then comes the tomatoes, onions and lettuce. They go on the "hinge." This gave me pause. To me, a hinge is a metal object with moveable parts that is found on doors. Obviously, this is not part of the sandwich. Again, you need to know that these rolls aren't cut all the way through, making two pieces. They are left attached on one side just enough to keep them from coming apart. Somebody decided to call this crease, or fold, the hinge. This doesn't sound very appetizing to me. I'd rather not have hardware used to describe my lunch. Our order contained two bowls. For the mac and cheese bowl with beef, the tab says to put the mac and cheese in the bottom of the bowl. Seriously? At some point, was there a rash of people putting the mac and cheese in the lid? The beef pieces are added on top, then it says to stir. In that case, why does it matter which went in first? I thought I'd found a mistake on the tab for the quinoa bowl. It started out by saying Quinoa, then the next line was Roasted Chicken. Line three is "PutChknOnTOP. I hope it wasn't too late. Now I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not making fun of the people preparing the food. Generally, they are competent and friendly. I'm as sure as I can be that someone high up in the corporation, a very Type-A type of person, was one day disgruntled when his cheese was under the meat instead of on top of it. Or his pickles were misplaced. At which point he ordered someone to make sure it never happened again. Definitely overkill, but it does give us something to chuckle over when the lunchtime conversation lags.