June 29, 2005
No Hablo Subway

Starving to death.  At midnight.  In Puerto Rico.  A couple of weeks back Jan and I, along with middle daughter Erin and her three-year-old Hailey, were starting a family vacation.  Other daughters, husbands and offspring were due later. 

After the skimpiest of breakfasts we flew out of Denver for Atlanta.  With today’s airline menu limited to pretzels and pop, the hour and a half layover in Atlanta was our food window of opportunity.  Tropical Storm Arlene managed to scuttle that plan and after circling Georgia for the better part of an hour we landed just in time to walk off one plane and onto another heading for San Juan.  More flying time was expended avoiding Arlene over Florida, plus going from Mountain to Eastern is always a losing proposition in the world of time zones, meaning the four of us arrived in San Juan to find the only “open” signs at baggage and Hertz. 

Car rented, we headed into the black Puerto Rican night knowing a) our latest meal was a distant memory (b) if the three year old wasn’t fed soon even the Michael Jackson jury would convict us of child abuse and c) calling ahead revealed the only person on duty at the hotel was a night watchman and it was reasonably assumed he didn’t double as a short order cook. 

Just before midnight the car drove by a shopping center outside Dorado, Puerto Rico.  The fast food outlets were as closed as Utah on Sunday but Jan noticed moving figures inside a Subway Sandwich Shop.  Indeed, two employees behind a locked front door motioned us around to the side of the building and the drive-up window.  Driving to the speaker I rolled down the window and discovered that while the menu was posted in English that wasn’t the language of choice to the invisible speaker person attempting to take our order.  The only sounds heard were pure Spanish.  Taking the typical American approach, I assumed in a touristy area, no matter the country, people were bi-lingual even if I wasn’t.  Bad assumption.  Attempting to order three Subway sandwiches in English went nowhere.  The Subway folks even brought in a substitute voice.  Nothing.  Recognizing our linguistic shortcomings the voice in the speaker then spoke slower, while almost yelling, in the hope speed and volume were the only factors keeping us from understanding simple Spanish.  

Suddenly, a solitary arm waving us forward appeared out of the drive-up window.  We were then eyeball-to-eyeball with the mystery voice and able to point out “turkey” on the menu.  But Subway is not the home of a one size fits all sandwich.  There are choices to be made.  “OH-leaves,” questioned the lady in the window.  I glanced at Erin who said, “Olives”.  “Si” I nodded. “Pep-purz? Asked the lady.  My daughter shook her head no.  And so we continued resembling Christina Amnapour interviewing Yassir Arafat and his interpreter on CNN.   We struggled our way through “my-o” (mayo), “whet or blanco” (wheat or white bread, I hoped) and what both my daughter and I thought might be thousand island but not being positive took the safe route and shook our heads, “no”. 

As the window closed we wondered just what epicurean delight had actually been ordered.  But before the sack of sandwiches were handed over there was the matter of paying.  The Subway lady gave us a Spanish amount, I pulled out a ten.  “It’s more than that,” said Erin.  “I heard ocho so an eight is involved.”  Hunger motivated me to begin doling out dollars until the lady handed over the sandwich sack.  “Una momento, por favor” she said and grabbing a pencil scribbled a figure and held up the paper saying, “$15.58.” The turkey subs were ours.