(Un)Common Courtesy

According to a 2008 estimate, Simpsonville, Kentucky—the town where I live—has a population of about 1,436 people. Dining out choices, as you may well imagine, are limited, but I am glad we have a Subway, where I can at least attempt to eat a bit healthier when I'm so inclined. Adding to the healthy mix is the new avocado spread introduced this month.

This past Saturday night, Kathy and I ran by our local Subway to grab a sandwich to take home. The $5 footlong special for the month of June was some kind of chipotle chicken sandwich, so we decided to get one of those to split. We had been at the church that evening, had only eaten a few snacks, and this was to be a late-night bite to eat a bit later than we normally enjoy having dinner. The Subway closes at 10 PM. We walked in at 9:40 and noticed all the chairs already stacked on the table. This was not a problem as we were planning to take our sandwich home with us.

One other customer was at the counter in front of us, and while we waited, I noticed a sign on the sandwich toaster that indicated it was not working. When we were ready to place our order, I told the teenage-looking girl behind the counter that we wanted to try the chicken sandwich on special, but wondered whether it was usually toasted since we'd noticed the toaster out of order. I observed the body language on the young girl change as she immediately shifted into a defensive mode. She apologized profusely about the toaster. She even said she could microwave the chicken and cheese and then add it to the sandwich if we liked.

To me, microwaved food is never preferable, but suddenly I had an idea. I looked at Kathy and said, "Since we're taking this with us, we could toast it ourselves in the oven at home, right?" Kathy agreed, stating that was a perfect idea, and she asked the Subway employee if it would be possible to put some of the vegetables in a side container to add after we toasted it.

Then an older employee came out of the back room, having evidently heard our exchange. "You two are the sweetest couple," she said. I've always thought Kathy and I were great together, so I just assumed she was speaking of us in a general way. :-)

But she went on. "We've had people come in here all day and get so upset at us for having a broken toaster. Some customers have yelled at us as if we did something to break it! You two are the only ones this entire day who have been nice about it."

Kathy and I were both a bit stunned. "You're kidding," I said. "It's not your fault if equipment fails. Why would folks get angry with you? And Subway didn't even have toasted sandwiches until a couple of years ago!"

They were genuinely appreciative of our reaction and response. We were "rewarded" for our civility with free cookies (which kind of defeated the purpose of trying to eat healthy, although we did not refuse them) and extra avocado spread for the sandwich.

Now, please understand me. I'm not telling you all of this to pat myself on the back or to try to make us look like models of equanimity. I assure you that we can both have our moments of grumpiness and selfish behavior. But I'm really surprised that in a town our size (although, granted, there would be a lot of interstate business, too), no one else would react with common courtesy to a situation that was clearly not the fault of the employees. It's a fact of reality that equipment eventually fails—all equipment. I wouldn't expect any establishment to have an extra toaster oven in the back in case the one in use fails. That would simply not be cost-efftective. And a non-toasted sandwich is not the end of the world. The majority of the sandwiches at Subway are fine without being toasted.

Simpsonville has almost literally a church on every corner with five found within city limits. Again, I'd like to blame poor behavior on interstate traffic, but I know that can't exclusively be the case. People in food service have my utmost respect. I worked in a McDonalds for only three weeks as a teenager. That was enough for me to know I wasn't cut out for that kind of a job—it's highly stressful even when all the equipment is working correctly. It bothers me that customers would show poor attitudes and take their frustrations out on employees who weren't responsible for the problem at hand.

Now, if you're a Christian reading this, you really have to choice in these kinds of matters. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, we have an obligation to be courteous to others: “Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person” (Col 4:5–6, HCSB).

But even if you're not a Christian, I would hope to appeal to any reader on the basis of a shared desire for civility (a lost virtue in our culture if there ever was one). The word civil is the root of the word civilization, and a loss of one will lead to the loss of the other. It doesn't help that we live in a technological culture where people hide behind computer screens and say things to each other virtually that they would never say in person, or that all of our primetime news networks feature one show after another where people yell at each other rather than disagreeing in a civil and courteous manner.

We make the world a better place with one conversation, one encounter at a time. There's simply no room for treating each other discourteously over nonsense as inconsequential as a sandwich—or whatever other petty matters come our way in the day.

Starbucks and Free WiFi—They Finally Get It

Quick note...

In the past, I'd written about how difficult it was to use Starbuck's "free" Wifi. I always placed free in quotation marks in the past because until last year, one had to keep a minimum $5 balance on a Starbucks gift card and use the card within a set period in order to access the internet from a computer or mobile device. For my previous rants from years gone by, see here and here from the This Lamp "Classic" website.

Moreover, even with the Starbucks account, it was often still a pain to log on, especially those times when I couldn't remember my password, had to call the support line for them reset it to something non-rememberable, and then forgot to change it to something I could remember.

Even though I actually like Starbucks coffee quite a bit (and yes, I realize some of you do not), this led to a unintentional boycott on my part. Many times when I wanted to simply grab a cup of coffee while I wrote, graded papers, or prepared a lesson, I'd opt for a different coffee shop—often one where the coffee simply wasn't as good—because using Starbucks WiFi was such a pain to manage.

Believe it or not, except at peak hours, most coffee shops and restaurants like you to hang out because nothing looks worse to a customer peering in from the outside than seeing an empty dining room. I don't know how many folks felt the way I did, but I wonder if the poorly managed WiFi that used to be the norm at Starbucks actually hurt their business and helped the competition. I do know that they closed quite a few stores last year and the year before, but that is correlation, not cause and effect.

Fortunately, way back in 2010 and at a time when I wasn't blogging much (not that I am now), Starbucks changed their ways and made wireless internet access easy. Now, all a customer has to do is select their WiFi signal, launch a web browser, click a checkbox saying you'll behave, and get online. This works hassle-free on computers and mobile devices such as my iPad, which is where I snagged the screenshot above. And I've also noticed that my Amazon Kindle simply connects automatically without even having to agree to anything. Maybe Starbucks assumes that one cannot get into too much mischief with a Kindle.

Regardless, I'm happy to give Starbucks my patronage again. Now, if I could only get them to turn down the air condition. It's freezing in here!

Cross Post: Smothered Cooking in Cast Iron (Louisiana Cookin' - February, 2010)

[Note: Some of you may or may not be familiar with my other website, "Cooking in Cast Iron." Cooking has always been a relaxing creative outlet for me, and in 2008, I spun my cast iron site off from this one because I figured not everyone who frequents This Lamp was necessarily interested in this other subject. However, I'm taking a moment to break from This Lamp's normal content to cross post an announcement of an article I recently had published in Louisiana Cookin' Magazine. My apologies if you're not interested, and if this is the case, please move along.]

I’m very pleased to announce that the current (Feb. 2010) issue of Louisiana Cookin’ contains an article I wrote, “Smothered Cooking in Cast Iron.” The article discusses the history and method of smothered cooking, and I also included five recipes written by myself, family, and friends.

Recipes included:

• Pointe Coupee Smothered Potatoes


• Uncle Larry’s Smothered Deer Steak


• Smothered Chicken and Andouille Sausage


• Hamburger Steak


• Queenie’s Smothered Steak

The “Uncle Larry” in the second recipe is my actual uncle, and the “Queenie” in the last recipe is my grandmother whose recipe I adapted for the article. My “original” contribution is the Smothered Chicken and Andouille Sausage recipe.

The article begins on p. 28 and concludes on p. 33. As you can see below, there are a number of very professional photographs of my recipes that accompany the article:



The February issue of Louisiana Cookin’ is now on sale at most major national book chains.