Action at a Distance - Footlong Sub to Save Chuck

Submitted via the Subway website...

 To whom it may concern: I have just returned from purchasing a 12" turkey & pepperoni sub from one of your Mt. Vernon, OH locations (the one OUTSIDE the Wal-Mart, rather than inside). I am composing this message since the establishment did not have a comment card box.

The turkey-pepperoni 12" had long been a staple of my diet, back in my young and heady high school days. But these days, as a college senior in rural Ohio, I vastly prefer to spend my money at local establishments than to schlep over to the neighboring town to get mere "fast food."

For four years, I can't say I missed it; my college town has a local deli and many other fine dining establishments, and nothing--certainly not the TV ads featuring dancing/singing idiots--made me even once think I was missing anything.

But then, two weeks ago, I found myself watching Chuck, one of my favorite currently-airing shows. In that episode, one character attempts to butter up another--a rather large fellow by the name of Big Mike--with a footlong chicken teriyaki sub. In the scene, the delicious sandwich is shown in all its glistening, meaty glory as Big Mike devours his favorite food. Now, I've never had a subway chicken teriyaki sub. But watching that scene made me remember MY favorite subway sandwich, made me remember my minimum-wage high school job (working for a dry cleaner's), made me remember how I HATED that job, made me remember how the ONLY THING that motivated me to go to work each day was that I would get myself one of those mouth-watering turkey & pepperoni sandwiches (eating half right away, and saving half for my mid-shift break). I remembered how the turkey and pepperoni complemented each other so perfectly, how the olives--bathed in honey mustard--added just the right variation, how the freshly-baked, never frozen Italian Herbs & Cheese bread would crunch. I remembered dripping honey mustard on myself and staining oh, so many pairs of pants. In that short scene, all those memories came flooding back, and I thought to myself, God, I want some Subway.

I'm graduating this year and moving back to a more civilized region, one where chain restaurants aren't a 15-minute car ride away. I'm heading off to become a poor grad student, and $5 will be approximately my daily lunch budget. Now that I've tasted that juicy goodness once again, I know where that $5-a-day is going. And it won't be to McDonald's.

The purpose of my writing this, Subway corporation, is to try to convince you of the good that Chuck has done for your business. I am sure my story is far from unique. And while I'm not going to say that that one scene is somehow saving your corporation (I don't imagine you're doing particularly poorly), I am saying that it was THE most effective Subway advertisement I've ever seen, and it reawakened a long-dormant craving in someone who used to be one of your most regular customers. You should implore NBC to renew Chuck, if at the very least, for the promise of more such ads to come.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sandwich to finish.