A Subway Revelation

By Randy Haglund

While I ate lunch at a Subway Restaurant today I witnessed an oddity.

A twenty-something woman sat alone at a table across the aisle from me and ate an entire six-inch sandwich without the use of a cell phone.

You heard me.

Not once did she talk to her boyfriend, text with her current BFF or check her e-mails or even IM anyone. I kept expecting her to take a picture of her meal and Instagram it to her friends, but she didn’t do that either. No ear buds were in evidence to blast the latest from Maroon Five or Taylor Swift or whoever they’re listening to now.

 It occurred to me that I may have slipped into a wormhole taking me back to my favorite decade—the 1960’s—so I checked the calendar in my own cell phone and it confirmed I still resided in 2019. A quick look toward the sandwich architect behind the counter corroborated this fact with his wild tattoos, numerous piercings and patches of unnatural hair colors.

I toyed with the idea of asking her if I could snap her picture, just so I could prove to my internet friends that I wasn’t making this up. But I reconsidered; gauging what her reaction might be to a total stranger three times her age and weight making such a request.   

Stealing furtive glances in the young woman’s direction, I expected to see a device behind the plate or in her lap, but there wasn’t one. She never even glanced down, as far as I could tell. As a matter of fact, judging from the expression on her face I could swear she was…thinking.

Is it possible that someone of the me generation is capable of contemplating personal thought without input from an electronic device? I dismissed the notion immediately. There had to be a better explanation.

Then it came to me. This poor girl had her cell phone lost or stolen!

I felt terrible. I had jumped to the conclusion that she was some kind of freak or even uniquely intelligent when in reality she mourned the loss of her closest companion. Was that a tear in the corner of her eye as she took the last bite of her toasted Black Forest Ham with mustard and pickle?

This is the important lesson I learned today and want to pass on to you. Never judge a stranger by their odd behavior. You never know what kind of horrible crisis they may be going through.

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