Judge Me By My Size, Do You?!

I recently walked in to a Potbelly Sandwich Works and ordered my usual vegetarian sandwich creation on white bread. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Potbelly is a chain sandwich shop mostly located in the Midwest region not unlike a Subway, Quizno’s, etc. The difference is that Potbelly sandwiches are hot rather than cold and the vegetarian one is really quite tasty in comparison to, say, Subway’s “vegetarian” sandwich which is pretty much a glob of lettuce, some mayonnaise, and an occasional olive here and there.

At Potbelly, you place your order at one end of the counter and then meet your sandwich and preparer on the opposite end of the oven. It’s there that you specify which specific ingredients you’d like on your sandwich. Usually, a completely different employee rings you up at the cash register, normally asking what you ordered and so on.

A young 20 something’s-ish girl was waiting for me at the register. She asked what I ordered and I promptly replied, saying a regular size vegetarian sandwich and a side of potato salad. She then said something that I didn’t fully hear with the only audible words being “…you…any…pickle…?”

I was a bit thrown off. I couldn’t recall there being any pickles inside the sandwich but, even if there were, they never have charged before for any specific ingredient. Being confused, I replied, “I’m sorry?!”

I could almost visibly see her altering her words in her head in order to make her question more clearly stated. The end result, though, was astounding: “A pickle. Do you have a big pickle??”

I simply stood and stared at her momentarily, completely dumbfounded. She, however, remained totally straight faced and saw nothing odd in her phrasing. Inside my brain, I was thinking, ‘Wow. Did this girl just ask me if I have a…big pickle?!’ As her question slowly started to digest in my brain and I started to understand what she was really asking, I suddenly busted out with a laugh. “Oh my goodness!” I said, slightly embarrassed. “Um, uh, no, I don’t…um…have a big pickle…now that you mention it,” realizing what I was admitting to out loud in a fast food chain. I couldn’t help but think about all those spam emails I get in regards to “Increase your Size”. It’s bad enough via email but nothing like being ‘interrogated’ at the local Potbelly too!

You see, Potbelly has a very large jar of huge whole pickles that they also sell. I’ve never actually seen anyone buy one, now that I think of it, which is why it didn’t immediately occur to me what she was really asking. I’m not entirely sure why she thought I wanted one or where that idea came from. Maybe I looked like a pickle connoisseur, who knows.

As we finished up the transaction, the cashier finally smiled and laughed a little as well as she continued to ring me up. I then proceeded to sit down and enjoy my sandwich, all the while thinking of the 1001 better responses I could and should have given her instead of what I actually came up with. It’s not every day that someone asks you if you have a big pickle, after all.