Last Tango at Quiznos

In 1973, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci shocked the world with Last Tango in Paris, a film whose disturbing theme–anonymous sex involving the use of high cholesterol solid fatty oils–caused it to be banned in many countries and applauded by the American Dairy Council.


Maria Schneider:  “Put your clothes on–the internet’s been invented.”

Bertolucci said that the idea for the film–starring a 48-year-old Marlon Brando and 19-year-old Maria Schneider–grew out of a sexual fantasy; his dream of “seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was.”

I have a fantasy somewhat similar to that of the great Italian director’s; I want to eat in a restaurant without knowing who the waitress is.


“We’ll give you a bigger tip if you don’t tell us your name.”

Around the time of Last Tango’s release, waitstaff in restaurants began to importune customers by announcing their first names–the waitstaff’s, that is, not the patrons.  “Hi my name is _ _ _ _ _ _ and I’ll be your waiter/waitress this evening” became restaurant fare as standard as creme brulee.  The goal, one presumes, was to enhance the evening’s experience by persuading diners that they were on a first-name basis with the help, thereby justifying higher “price points” for the owner and bigger tips for the servers.

The insincerity of this ploy was apparent from the fact that there was never any attempt at a bilateral exchange; no waitress ever asked you what your name was.  If she did, she might have to send you a Christmas card, or buy you a birthday present.  You can be sure she didn’t want that to happen.

As a result of this enforced familiarity I have, over the past few months, been waited on by an Antonia, a Celeste, and a Gloria.  I’ve met a Brittany and a Chelsea; I’m somewhat surprised I haven’t encountered a Liverpool as well.  In every single instance, the freighted and flirtatious subtext that name-exchanging inevitably carries with it, like so much ballast in a cargo ship, has led to precisely nothing.  Not even a come-hither look as I walk past the cash register, or a 2 cent peppermint instead of just a toothpick.  Just a happy face next to the signature of “Chelsea!”


“Come hither–for a complimentary toothpick!”

The disappointment that I’ve felt over and over again has caused me to turn in upon myself and withdraw from the world; I want, like Greta Garbo, to be left alone.  I want to eat in silence, not to be reminded again and again of the many women who have told me their names, then dropped me like a hot rock.  I want the joy of anonymous dining.


“You’re right–the service is lousy here.”

And so I have come to my local Quiznos, a restaurant so low-down that the counter help does not tell you their names.  Here, I hope to enter the realm of the forbidden, the unknown.  The woman behind the counter has no nametag, but begins to speak as I approach.

“Welcome to Quiznos, may I take your . . . ”

“Please–no names.”

“I need to know the name of your sandwich.”

“My sandwich has no name.”

“Then you can order by number.”

I look up on the board and see what I want, or at least what I want that doesn’t come in the form of a woman.

“Number one,” I say.  The Honey Bacon Club.

“Small, medium or large?”

“What does my size matter?”

“The manager’s special is a medium toasted sandwich with a bag of chips and a large fountain drink.”


Manager’s special

I consider her generosity, her openness to a total stranger.  I find this–strangely alluring.

“You have been most helpful,” I say with sincere gratitude.  “Medium it shall be.”

She begins to cut the bread on the specially-marked Quiznos cutting board that makes proper sizing of sandwiches a matter of mathematical precision.

“What do you want on it?” she asks.

It is a question she must ask, and yet I think she knows the answer.  “I must have–everything.”


Hopelessly humdrum non-Quiznos single-warhead condiment dispenser:  Don’t make me laugh.

She takes the high-speed condiment dispenser, specially manufactured for Quiznos with not one, not two, but three spouts, and squirts it over my bread.  It is over too quickly, and yet I am satisfied.

She slides the sandwich wordlessly into the Quiznos oven, then disappears–only to re-appear on the other side, like a startled wood nymph!  She’s a one-woman assembly line!


Wood nymph: Do I get extra credit for working her into a post about Quiznos?

The sandwich emerges from the mouth–uh, actually, I guess the other end is the mouth–of the oven, and she wraps it with brutal, almost sadistic efficiency.  She turns, gives me a look that I think is more than the perfunctory expression of fast-food commercial gratitude–and is gone.

I am awoken from my reverie by the voice of the butt-ugly shift manager.

“For here or to go?” he asks.

“Did you say tango?”

“No–to go.”

I look after her.  She is lost to me already–waiting on someone else.  Someone she just met.  Someone–like me–she doesn’t know.  I am crushed, like the ice that comes tumbling out of the soft drink dispenser.

“If you don’t mind,” I say to the manager, “I’d like the extra large fountain drink.”

“That doesn’t come with the special.”

“Yes, but I want the plastic souvenir cup–to remember her by.”

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