I've worked at a subway store for 4 years now. Lame, I know, but its great money, relatively easy and I've truly made some life long friends whilst working there.
Anyone that works in any sort of fast food shop is bound to have their fair share of horror stories. A friend of mine that used to work at McDonald's almost got tasered when she went to take a customers money through the Drive Thru. Crazy shit. Anyway, apart from being robbed once while working and your general drunks, I never had much of a story to tell. Until last week..
It was a Tuesday afternoon. I was on until 5pm, and having started work that day at 6:30am, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. It was around 3:30 when the other girl that I was on with started complaining she felt really sick. I told her I'd be fine working until 5 by myself so she left. We aren't supposed to do that, and I probably shouldn't have, but what can you do?
So she left and time trickled by. We were dead as anything so I got pretty excited when a customer walked on through. He looked like he was in his late 40s, had balding, black hair and ridiculously thick glasses and a very sad demeanor about him. I greeted him with the usual "Hi! How are you today?" in the most cheerful tone I could muster. "Fine" was what he managed to mumble out. Aren't customers awesome? He began ordering his sub, a process that usually takes me under a minute depending on how decisive the customer is. This particular customer however, was choosing each and every aspect of his sandwich with such care it was like it was going to be his last meal in the world.
After a 5 minute debate on which cheese he wanted, I whisked his sub into the toaster. I hate awkward silences during the toasting time, so I like to spark up conversation with the customers. I began asking how his day had been so far and he told me that it was one of the worst days of his life. The day before I too had experienced a shit kicker of a day and began to retell my experience. How it started with a 10kg box of chicken schnitzels falling on my head, how my phone fell out of my work locker and the cold hateful tiles obliterated the screen, how I then had to catch a bus home from work only to realize 20 minutes in I was on the wrong bus and on the complete opposite side of town, and how it ended with me walking home in the pouring rain to find I was locked out. Real shit day. To my surprise the grumpy, indecisive man was now howling with laughter with tears pouring down his face. Now I admit, it was kind of funny, but not THAT funny. Although I was glad to see he had some sort of happiness in him. I finished up his sandwich and he went and sat in the restaurant happily chomping away.
10 minutes later he came up to the counter and asked if he could borrow a pen. I handed him one an he took a napkin and went back to his table. A further 10 minutes later he returned with the pen and the now scribbled on, folded up napkin. He handed them both to me and asked me to promise him not to read the napkin until he was out of the shop and out of view. I gingerly agreed and he left the shop and walked onto the highway that is in front of my store. I watched as cars screeched around him as he walked without a care in the world to the middle grass island that separates the two sides. For a few very long minutes he stared down the highway into oncoming traffic, like he was judging when a good time it would be to cross back over. But that couldn't be it I thought, what the hell was he doing? As if he had heard my thoughts the man turned to me with the biggest grin plastered across his face and started waving. A bit confused and very creeped out, I waved back. It was then that he stepped out in front of a log truck. I have never seen someone get hit by a vehicle before, and I never wish too again. I shoved the napkin into my back pocket, leapt over the counter and bolted outside. His body was lying 200m up the highway. People were screaming and crying; it was total chaos. I ran to him where a small group of people were gathered. I knelt down in front of his badly mangled body and immediately started bawling my eyes out. How was it that just 5 or so minutes ago this man was standing in front of me, well and truly alive, and now he was dead and almost unrecognizable. It was then that I remembered the napkin. This is what it said:
To my dear, fellow human. Today I decided that it is going to be my last day on this horrid earth. It wouldn't be so horrid if my beautiful wife and daughter were still alive. But they're not, and today is the 1 year anniversary of their deaths. One fucking year since that idiotic drunk driver crashed into them at 110km at an intersection. They did not deserve to die that night, but they did. Since then I am not the same person. Hell, who could be? I'm just a shell of my former self. Most people don't bother with me anymore, and I know I come off as rude but I really didn't think I had any positivity left in my life, in my soul. Until today. Until today I hadn't laughed, or smiled for that matter in a year. But you achieved the impossible, you made a sad old man cry tears of happiness. I wanted to thank you for that. For you have put me on cloud 9, and made me realize that life isn't all that bad, but this is truly what I want. I need to be with my daughter and my wife and that is just what I'm going to do. So again, thank you for making my year, and helping me leave this earth with a smile on my face.
P.s Great sub!
