Really Cheesed Off

When I was about ten years old, my dad instilled in me some of the most important knowledge known to mankind–how to make a grilled cheese. It was simplicity and beauty in the form of a sandwich, for all you needed was butter, bread and cheese. It was also near impossible to mess up if you had two working eyes and consistent motor skills. The bottom line is that the grilled cheese offers an invaluable reward for very little risk, making it one of the best sandwiches out there. That being said, can someone please tell me why every single employee at the Charcoals grill in the SAC cannot make a grilled cheese without first burning the shit out of it?

Employees stand for multiple hours in suffocating, greasy air with sweat pouring down their faces, all while obese assholes stuff their triple turkey burger with bacon order slips down their throats and Asians repeatedly forget to mention what they want on their Philly cheese steaks. It doesn’t look too easy-going, so I can understand why that one guy with thin moustache forcibly stuffs cardboard burger boxes with buns while wearing the most profound scowl imaginable, or why every employee seems to get immense joy out of not taking people’s orders for as long as possible.

But listen, the grilled cheese is literally dumb-proof…I made it as a ten-year-old and it came out fine, so it really doesn’t make much sense that nine out of ten times, they absolutely fuck up my and many others’ sandwiches.

Let me paint you the picture of a typical grilled cheese-ordering scenario at the SAC. You get in line with maybe 40 minutes until your class, which should be more than enough time to get something relatively small from the grill, eat it and be on your way. Well, guess again. First, you wait until they decide to stop ignoring you while they fill those 10,000 turkey burger boxes that nobody will take because they get cold after 10 minutes of sitting on the pre-made shelf.

Once they actually look at your order, they do get it rolling relatively quickly. They spray the sandwich presser down, lay the bread and put on the cheese and then they are done. That’s it…that’s all the work it requires. Except for the fact that they just don’t give a shit and forget the sandwich is there almost every single time.

So you get to sit there and watch while they fill about three to four other orders and your grilled cheese starts to visibly bubble. You start to contemplate saying something to them like “Hey…I think that’s ready,” or “Please stop fucking up my day with your negligence.” But you don’t want to be too rude because well, let’s face it, if you’re ordering a grilled cheese you’re probably a meek person.

Then comes the climax of the exchange where one of the employees actually decides to look at their surroundings instead of mechanically cutting buns or emptying french fry baskets, and sees that they are on the verge of a kitchen fire. So they stroll over, open the tray and very clearly mutter some expletive as they gaze at the now mostly black slab of a sandwich. So what do they do? Instead of make a new one, which wouldn’t take more than another 5 minutes if they don’t forget about it again, they just take it off the press and hand it to you with no apology or anything.

Now your day sucks. You’re sitting in the SAC, now almost late to your class, and peeling off pieces of burnt cheese off quite possibly the worst grilled cheese ever brought into existence. Please, Charcoals workers, just stop being lazy and forgetful and destroying everything I love about the best sandwich on the planet.