College Degrees Are Important

If this blog will teach you anything, it will teach you that I enjoy submarine sandwiches on Thursday nights. Last week, I had the ill-fated Jimmy Johns delivery. This week, having learned from my lesson (go growth and development!), I drove to Sub City to buy Kelsey and me a sub. I walked into the sub shop and immediately saw Mr. Hartman, my old something teacher in high school during my junior year.  I nodded, but he clearly didn't recognize me. He should have recognized me. He called me a Communist once because I hadn't seen Top Gun. Top Gun is a terrible movie. People shouldn't like Top Gun. However I do believe in free enterprise. Thus I have proved that people who don't like or haven't seen Top Gun aren't necessarily Communists. These two things have nothing in common.

Since Mr. Hartman has the memory of a man who has had several students over several years and did not remember me, I turned my attention to the sandwich making man whose name I don't know but will call Matt because Matt is a good, simple name to repeat several times. Matt liked the Minnesota Twins shirt I was wearing. I know this because he said, "Great shirt man." I said, "Thanks Matt." He said, "How did you know my fictional name?" I said, "Because I gave it to you Matt." 

Really though, after he commented on my shirt, I told him the very true (really) story about a time a guy who was also named Jay tried to buy my shirt for $20 from me. This was in a bar on the July 4th one year prior to the July 4th I got married. I was very drunk. I actually considered selling this shirt to Other Jay because, let's face it, $20 would have bought me a lot of necessary toiletries. Kelsey told me I shouldn't sell my shirt, so I didn't sell my shirt. I'm glad I didn't sell my shirt. I really like this shirt. I'm wearing it right now.

Back to my conversation with Matt: After he told me I had a great shirt, I told him thank you, and he asked where I got the shirt from. I told him I bought it from a little shop outside the Metrodome, but ironically (misuse of the word!) I bought it before a Minnesota Vikings game. He said, "Oh what Vikings game were you at?" I thought this was a confusing question because I've been to lots of Vikings games? I told him I saw them play the Giants. He told me he was a Packers fan. I said, I've actually seen them play the Packers too. I was there when Brett Favre broke the touchdown record. Matt said, "Dude, we were at the same game."

Buuhahahhhahahah! LOST

Matt then told me how he got tickets to the game. It turned out his best friend is one of the Vikings' mascots. He's not the Viking, but he's a guy in the crowd in some sort of purple animal suit. I asked Matt how his best friend for life got this job. Matt told me that his friend was Herky the Hawkeye during college and won some national "best mascot" contest. When he graduated college, the Vikings called him and offered him a job. He's a Minneapolis architect by week and a Minnesota Viking mascot by weekend--all because of college! Better yet, when Matt gets ticket from his mascot friend, he gets to hang out with all the corporate sponsors. He said he drank a lot of free beer at the Pepsi tent. I told him I didn't know how I feel about that. He said it was great. I said that's good. I said that sounded more interesting than me sitting there watching a football game as my brother and my dad slowly got drunk (just kidding--they got drunk real fast). He said, but that's what football is about. I agreed (because my sandwiches were done, and I had no time to disagree).  Matt and I then nodded at each other and said goodbye. I'm pretty sure he was/is the greatest sandwich artist/storyteller this world has ever seen. Good job Matt.

When I left the Sub City store a man who was shaped exactly like an egg was leaving a nearby bar. I'd never quite seen a human shaped this way. If you were to push this man over, he would simply pop back up on his thicker rounded bottom. He had very long, shaggy hair. It looked like Justin Bieber's hair, only the egg-shaped man's hair was poofier. He had khaki shorts pulled up past his belly button. He had an orange polo tucked into his khaki shorts. He wore Doc Marten boots. He walked right out in front of my car. It was raining. I did not hit him with my car. My alert driving saved the egg man's life. He is now forever in my debt. Because of this, I think it is only appropriate that the egg-shaped man become my official mascot. When I inevitably buy a sports franchise, they will be rechristened the Shiny Forehead Egg-Shaped Men. They will win so many championships and sell so many t-shirts.

My sandwich was delicious. Thanks for asking.