Subway Employee Tells Customer to “Fight Me Like a Man,” Over Ketchup Dispute

The very last panel of the Hyperbole and a Half comic “Sneaky Hate Spiral” depicts an enraged stick figure with fangs for teeth, shouting at an implied Subway employee, “The cheese triangles don’t go like that!“

It’s funny, because it’s universal: somehow, at every Subway ever, there is that one guy who gets the cheese-to-meat-to-veggie ratio all wrong, simply through means of dairy misplacement. And while this is annoying, it has, to my knowledge, never spurred anyone to say, “Fight me like a man,” like this ketchup incident last week in Florida did.

Imagine this: You’re heading home late, probably after a hard day at the office, and you think, “You know what? I deserve a Five-Dollar Footlong!” So, you stop by your local Subway and step up to the counter behind one man, let’s call him Luis Martinez, who has just ordered a Philly Cheesesteak sub.

“Hey, you know what would be great on a Philly cheesesteak? Ketchup!” said no one, ever.

But that is what Martinez has ordered, and far be it from you to judge.

The man behind the counter, however, Lawrence Ordone, thinks this is ridiculous. He’s never put ketchup on a sub before. In fact, Subway doesn’t even have ketchup, he claims.

You, being the kind and hungry soul that you are, offer to buy Mr. Martinez’s sandwich, at which point, he may or may not have “mouthed off” at you (there is some discrepancy here over what really happened). And then all hell breaks loose. Threats are flung (including Ordone’s “Fight me like a man”), exits are blocked, 911 is dialed. Martinez claims Ordone threatened to “kill [him] in front of [his] wife.” No arrests are made, though Scary Sandwich Man Ordone is fired, having only this to say for himself:

“There’s ketchup three aisles down. You can go buy your own ketchup, and I promise to God, you can put as much as you want on it and nobody’s going to say nothing.”

And where are you left in the middle of all this gratuitous drama? Hopefully, you jacked a free Philly (with Sriracha?) and got out of dodge.

H/T wftv.com + PicThx Subway.com