Stingy Subway Man

I had the strangest experience today. Riley, Finn and I were at the food court eating Subway and Finn spilled his chocolate milk everywhere: all over the food, table, floor and himself. After looking all over for a dispenser, I went back to the gentleman at Subway and asked for some napkins. He handed me two.

I said, “My son spilled his chocolate milk, may I have a few more?”

“No,” he replied. “Change tables.”

“Change tables?” I was confused at first.

He nodded.

Whatever! I could not believe his ignorance! I was supposed to move two kids, their sandwiches (drenched in chocolate milk), their drinks and yogurts, plus my veggie sub and drink, our bags and coats to another location, irresponsibly leaving a HUGE mess EVERYWHERE so that he didn’t have to share a rag or splurge on a few extra napkins.

I must have looked confused when I turned around and went back to attempt the mess with my two, super thin and anti-absorbent Subway napkins, because a nearby woman came over with a stack to offer. It was so nice. For the next five minutes or so I cleaned up the milk with a steady stream of passersby dropping off their unused papers. Riley and Finn kept saying how nice they all were and I went from uber frustration to super satisfied by the kindness of strangers in a few short minutes.

It was a great time to have a “pay it forward” discussion with the kids to whom I had doled out all the banana peppers and black olives on my sammy – something I would not normally have been too thrilled about.

“It’s funny, when people do nice things for you, it just makes you want to do something nice for someone else doesn’t it? I asked. They both agreed.

On her way out, the first nice woman who had donated her napkins stopped over. She looked like she must be a grandmother and had obviously been in my kid-saturated situation a time or two before. “You know,” she said, “When you were down on the floor trying to wipe that up, that guy was watching you. He saw all of us helping you and started to try and wave you down and offer you more.”

Hopefully next time stingy Subway man will just hand them over to begin with.