An Open Letter To An Unacceptable Amount Of Mayonnaise

Dear Mr. James of the Family John,

I’ll drop the formalities, Jimmy John; I’m going to be frank. Yesterday I thought I ordered a sandwich, but upon unwrapping the culinary atrocity you’d delivered I found nothing except disappointment and confusion—much like a child tearing open a birthday present only to find this year’s edition of Quicken. What I received was no sandwich; it was more akin to a small raft of bread floating atop a congealed caloric ocean on its voyage to Type II diabetes.

My appetite was gone, and not satiated.

The ratio was revolting. The term sandwich was inaccurate. Sandwich implies some bit of structural integrity when, in fact, this was just a coagulated mass. Out of context I’d have surmised it was industrial cafeteria waste or an interactive art project gone awry. Jimmy John, I wanted lunch not poor man’s potato salad, my non-mayonnaise toppings suspended within the gob like casualties in Attack of the Blob.

I immediately threw it out, needless to say. It’s now feeding the dumpster rats that lack self-control.

My cubicle’s carpet, though, will never regain its innocence.

I fear I’m being unfairly stereotyped, Jimmy John. I know I live in the Midwest. I know I’m part of the demographic that leads this nation in cheese-based restaurants and child heart attacks. I know we sell t-shirts that read “Flavor Country: We’ll Show Restraint When We’re Prematurely Dead.” But, Jimmy John, we’re not all Rascal-riding gluttons. Some of us view sandwiches as more than just vehicles to ingest mayonnaise.

Sure, freaky fast delivery is great, but not when it’s in such haste that your sandwich-slinging bigots are applying sweeping generalization to populations just to get orders out on schedule.

Prejudices like this are tough to stomach. Please, stop ascribing your narrow-minded beliefs about me based off my location and neighbors’ waistlines. Get to know me for who I am: a customer who experiences white-hot rage whenever he’s delivered a meal drowning in white, room-temperature goo.

I have a dream that my children can someday live in a world where mayonnaise always comes on the side. Yes, I know it’d be more expensive and would render your company’s vats and masonry trowels useless, but it is a compromise. Your stereotyping sandwich servants can remain and continue to pigeonhole customers to their blackened hearts’ content, yet, by only giving packets, they’ll never again be able to ruin a lunch through over-mayonnaise-ing!

Be a leader who looks out for people. This country needs a sandwich king, not a sandwich Führer.

Marginalized as Another Midwesterner,

Justin Gawel