Not something I purchased, but something I sold.

I used to live on Long Island. Back then, I worked in a fast casual food place.

I had this one customer that looked and sounded like Bernie Sanders – only much older and much angrier. He would come in every Friday night at 5:00 and order the same thing: a salty sardine sandwich.

I had never heard of such a thing. The first time he came in, I asked him to clarify exactly what he wanted:

“A salty sardine sandwich. You mean you don’t sell a salty sardine sandwich? Its a salty sardine sandwich goddamnit!”

Before I could process that sentence he slammed his fist on the counter and stormed out of the restaurant. The thing is, I wasn’t even mad at him. Most of the time, I didn’t suffer fools gladly. I was dealing with way too many degenerates and taking far too many drugs to have anything resembling normal human patience – but this guy? This guy was different. Sure, he was an asshole, but something about him was so sincere that I had to respect him.

He came in again next week at the same time. I told him that while we usually don’t offer the salty sardine sandwich, I would be more than happy to make him a special order if he would be kind enough to tell me the ingredients. He got mad and told me

“You take a baguette, you split it down the middle, take a thing of Mortons dump it all on both sides. Then you take two cans of sardines and you cover both sides. You stick it in the oven for five minutes at 250 degrees. This isn’t complicated goddamnit!”

And with that, he slammed his fist on the counter and stormed off again. This time, my manager – Ricky from Freeport – heard the whole thing and came over to yell at me. He told me that if I piss off a customer one more time I’m getting written up. That would be my third write-up, which would probably get me fired.

I knew the customer would be back next week – so I went to the King Kullen across the lot and got all the essential ingredients for a salty sardine sandwich. Since we already had the baguettes and the Mortons, I just needed to pick up some sardines. Two for one special that night – lucky me. Next week, I would be ready for him.

Next Friday rolls around. It was 4:00pm, so I stopped aligning the pastries and got to work on my first salty sardine sandwich. Splitting the baguettes and pouring the Mortons was easy enough, but I got a little confused when it came to the sardines. I didn’t know if I should arrange them with the heads facing inward or outward. I settled on an alternating pattern so the two halves fit together very nicely. I put it in the oven at 250 degrees for five minutes. When it was done, I wrapped it up all nice. I was proud of myself.

When 5:00pm came around, Sandwich Man was right on schedule. Before he could order, I told him the total would be 12.50. He grumbled something and threw a twenty at me, and stormed off with his sandwich. No thank you, no surprise, he didn’t even wait for his change. I was pissed. After all that effort; I don’t even get to watch him eat my first salty sardine sandwich? I was genuinely curious to know if I had made it correctly and now I just felt stupid – stupid and used.

About a month goes by with no visits from Sandwich Man. I assumed I would never see him again. Late one night, I was arguing with some goblin women who was furious that we were out of cinnamon buns – we weren’t but I had hidden the last two under the counter because I promised my cousin I would steal them for him. Ricky from Freeport heard the whole thing. He came over and started chewing me out in front of her – I knew I was getting fired the second she left.

But then Sandwich Man appeared behind her in line. He watched Ricky from Freeport berate me for another minute or so before he stormed up the counter, slammed his fist, pointed at Ricky from Freeport and yelled:

“What the hell is wrong with you? You leave him alone – he made me the best salty sardine sandwich I ever had goddamnit!”