Shit Sandwich: The Death of the Meal Deal
Hear that? That whooshing sound in the distance? If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the plaintive howls of thousands of depressed office workers shaking in their ill-fitting pinstripes, throwing impotent fists at half-empty chiller cabinets. They’re angry, and sad, and they don’t know what to do.
Yes, the rumours are true – Sainsbury’s have changed the sandwiches in their meal deal. There’ll be no more ham hock flakes getting trodden into these carpets; it’s a sad, sad day, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the last time they made Creme Eggs a bit smaller.
Never liking to turn down the chance at an explosive over-reaction, the Great British Public have taken to Twitter, like knights to their mighty steeds, to complain about their inability to choose between three kinds of tuna sandwich without any concern of how much they’ll cost. Now, there are two ways of approaching this subject, which we shall now dub #MealDealGate – with unironic and massively out-of-proportion ire, or in the slightly snooty tone of someone who understands a concept but isn’t entirely sure of the appeal. Naturally, we’ll do both.
Because let us tell you, this is some bullshit. The meal deal has become a genuine cornerstone of the British dining experience (a more depressing sentence fragment there is not) with massive amounts of online chatter around the art of the Deal. It's a genuinely important moment in the day for legions of people across the country, and messing with it messes with our ideas of normality.
People don't like change – just try redesigning a small element of your social media website and watch the abuse fly in all directions – and in an increasingly hostile and rickety reality we need as many islands of safety as possible. Plus, it’s lunchtime, we’re in a rush, and we’re hungry. Given an infinite bounty to choose from, no-one is going to say: “Y’know what I really want? A cold, damp baguette that appears to have been trodden on a couple of times.” We are at your mercy, Sainsbury’s – don’t piss on our bonfire and tell us it’s raining.
But on the other hand, come on. This isn’t even the worst thing Sainsbury’s have done in the past four weeks – that honour goes to their Hackney Road store’s security guard who remonstrated with a gay couple for the crime of holding each other’s hands. They've got rid of your favourite sandwich? Kick 'em to the kerb (not literally), and give them the finger (again, in your head). It is, after all, just a sandwich. You don't need to lose your mind and/or your dignity over it.
Maybe now the hex has been lifted, and we can all move on from the mass-produced supermarket sarnie and onto... y'know... supporting independent sandwich shops and cafes, or making our own lunches, or actually taking a genuine lunch break instead of attempting to smash a dry chicken sandwich into one's mouth while checking your emails and trying not to get mayonnaise on your keyboard. Just a suggestion. Sometimes in life we don’t get the meal deals we want, or the meal deals we need, but the meal deals we deserve.
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