Big Az Sammiches
It’s a sad fact of factory life that eventually you find yourself eating a Big Az sammich out of the vending machine. For me, in this instance, it was a Big Az country fried chicken sammich I subjected myself to. It was the first break of the day. I was hungrier than usual. There was eleven hours left in my shift before I could skulk out the door and find real food, and I had twenty-seven dollars burning a hole in my pocket, so I figured maybe the quality and taste had improved since the last Big Az sammich I ate seven years ago.
Spoiler alert, Big Az sammiches still taste incredibly bland while somehow repulsing the taste buds in an undefinable way. I’d hoped the Big Az sammich would be an improvement from the ten-dollar beef and cheese sticks favored by the Hydra Hydraulics rank and file. It was not, and the whole thing sat in the pit of my stomach like a spongy bowling ball resulting in half my usual production output during the next three days.
But this column is not about Big Az sammiches. Big Az sammiches are only the MacGuffin which spins us into the crux of this sordid tale.
To get the full culinary effect of the Big Az sammich, one must first nuke it in the microwave oven in such a way that it’s cooked all the way through, yet the edges aren’t blistering to the mouth for the next ten minutes. Not as easy as it sounds, but I intended to do exactly that.
While the mechanism radiated my Big Az sammich to within an acceptable vicinity of the desired temperature, the newly hired manufacturing engineer entered the breakroom. She seemed surprised to see me since it wasn’t my allotted break time. I’d been introduced to Reagan last week and horribly bungled that meeting by mentioning she shared a name with my third least favorite president, behind Trump and Dick Cheney. I further alienated her from the possibility of falling madly in love with me by asking her if she were going to be Skylar’s replacement. Randy, the inhumanly incompetent retiring manager, quickly informed me she would be replacing himself. He said it in such a way that my attempt to belittle Skylar somehow reflected negatively on Reagan, as though a woman couldn’t possibly take on a managerial position when in actuality, a stapler possessed more sense than Randy.
So, I had that going for me.
It’s a moot point to mention here that Reagan was an attractive, middle-aged woman. My shop floor lothario days were about fifteen years behind me, and I’d settled regally into the role of factory elder statesman. Still, it never hurt to be charming. And I can be a charming motherfucker. Just not too charming because as I’ve stated at some point, my wife also works at Hydra.
She popped her breakfast biscuit into the microwave oven next to mine, and we exchanged awkward smiles. Awkward for her because I kept glancing at her breasts; awkward for me because I’m not prone to smiling.
“How have you been enjoying Hydra’s bullshit?” I asked.
“Really good. Everybody’s been super nice.”
Super nice… I’d never personally known no such treatment in my experiences at Hydra. Obviously, we maneuvered along different tracks, but I doubted she relished the prospect of hearing me enumerate the petty resentment and all around hard feelings I harbored for the members of management.
“Well, that’s just fantastic. I’ll try not to break your streak, then.”
Poor fool, I thought. Wait until she leaves a tortilla unguarded on the breakroom table…
What I wanted to ask her is if my moustache made me look debonair. I would have settled even for diabolic. But I could not figure out a proper way to phrase the question without coming across as goofy.
Just then, my microwave oven chimed. I reached down and tried to open the door. I failed. The door remained perfectly unopened.
I tried again with the same result. The door acted as though it wished to yield but remained steadfast in its will to retain my Big Az sammich.
“What sort of malicious bedevilment is this? Another example of management’s trickery, ensorceling the microwave oven so I can’t poison my colon with a Big Az sammich?”
“You have to hit the button,” Reagan said. Her expression remained neutral. The sexual tension between us, I noted despondently, wholly nonexistent.
“I’ve pressed all the buttons I’m liable to press,” I shrugged. And still the door wouldn’t open.
“Press O.” Shades of bafflement crept across her features. Why she should be confused I couldn’t say. I was the one unable to reach my Big Az sammich.
“What do you mean? It’s a microwave oven not a safe. Why should I need to enter some sort of convoluted code to access my Big Az sammich?”
“Look there.” She seemed almost resentful, now, having to engage with me. “Look at the sign on the microwave. It says PRESS 0 TO UNLOCK MICROWVE DOOR. You have to press 0.”
“Signs? I don’t read signs. I’m still throwing tortillas willy nilly across breakroom tables. I give a damn about signs.”
Then, I pressed 0 and retrieved my Big Az sammich.
“There you go,” she said, the way she might have praised an incredibly stupid dog who finally shit outside for once.
“I guess I was fortunate to have a manufacturing engineer beside me. I’d have gone hungry otherwise.”
“Uh huh.”
“I am of Polish stock, you know. I came by the Polish Hammer moniker honestly.” Perhaps she intuited this. Surely, she’d heard the name battered around in staff meetings. I’d largely been considered a force for evil in the eyes of mid to upper management for a long time. I added, “I come from a long line of Polish folks who struggled with microwave oven doors.”
“Yeah.”
“And don’t let this one scenario define who I am. Because at some point, sooner than later, I’ll have some issues with chrome shop, and I don’t want you thinking, you know, well, of course he can’t operate the chrome shop efficiently, he can barely open a fucking microwave door.”
“It’s okay. It happens.”
“Maybe to other guys…”
“Ten minutes from now you’ll forget it ever happened.”
“A code to open a microwave door. It’s unheard of. But then, I never thought I’d need a goddam badge to get inside this hellhole.”
“Okay, well, your sandwich is getting cold.”
“I don’t even want the fucking thing anymore. All it’s going to do is sit in my gut for three days. Like a crucified Christ waiting on a toilet bowl resurrection, you know.”
“Okay, now.”
“Well, thanks again. I hope you enjoy your stay, here.”
“Stay…” She snorted derisively.
Perhaps she thought I was questioning her longevity here in what amounts to a manufacturing Gaza Strip. I view all things as temporary. It’s the only way I can make it through the day while clinging to the frayed ends of my sanity.
The Big Az sammich tasted like spongy concrete sprinkled with sawdust. The longer I stared disdainfully at it, the worse it tasted, until all I could do was throw it in the garbage as though it were a chunk of hope between two slices of dreams.
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
