So much for national cookie day

Suddenly it felt like watching American election returns all over again. December 4th started with such promise. After all, it was National Cookie Day. A day of renewal, hope, and healing.

According to an email I got from Subway, you could get a free footlong chocolate chip (remember that part it’s important) cookie with the purchase of a footlong sandwich.

I’ve never been a huge Subway fan. When I worked at the Simpson Street Free Press in middle school and high school I had far too many dinners there on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. The SSFP office was nestled next to a Subway and a fast food Chinese place that was just, in a word, no. So a lot of Subway sandwiches. Too many. Thus an acquired aversion.

But a free footlong chocolate cookie gets my attention. It’s not BAK’D but it was free.

It started with downloading the Subway app as the plan came together.

• You had to buy a footlong sandwich which are still less than $20

• My wife was working an overnight shift and for some reason there is no cafeteria open. Great for DoorDash and UberEats not so great for our finances.

• We’d be passing a Subway on the way back from my daughter’s gymnastics class.

• She’d be having her dessert when we got home.

My wife placed an order and we selected the footlong CHOCOLATE CHIP cookie.

After gymnastics my daughter and I navigated a weirdly foggy Vancouver to stop at the Subway and cram our car into a tight parking lot full of parents waiting in vehicles for the martial arts class next door to finish.

The sandwich was ready, I’m sure it was well done. But then it was like WI was called for the Republicans again.

“We were out of chocolate chip so I gave you Gingerbread instead"

“I’m sorry?” Now I’m worried about Michigan

“We don’t have chocolate chip so I gave you a Gingerbread”

Definitely the worst thing Subway has ever done.

I huddle with my daughter and neither of us are satisfied with this. What am I going to do with a footlong Gingerbread cookie? We have no plans to build a habitable Gingerbread structure this Christmas. And we definitely aren’t eating it.

The whole point of that stupidly expensive sandwich was to get the free footlong (and-I-Can’t-Stress-This-Part-Enough) chocolate chip cookie. But I already paid for the sandwich and can’t really get a refund for that.

So not really in the Christmas spirit despite the lifetime supply of Gingerbread there I try a more, I guess, Channukah approach?

“Could we maybe just exchange the Gingerbread for some chocolate chip cookies,?” my opening negotiation.

*Angry stare*
”We just aren’t really Gingerbread fans, but maybe we could get the equivalent in chocolate chip cookies?”

The sandwich artist looks mad but softens a smidge more than Gingerbread

“I guess I could give you 3 or 4,” she relents.

“Okay, lets do that,” it’s not a footlong worth but we’re sort of in Hobson’s Choice.

Thus ends the conversation as she wordlessly bags up 4 small chocolate chip cookies and we do the swap. Neither party satisfied with the outcome ultimately. This isn’t quite Brian Branch for Jayden Reed + Dontayvion Wicks + Karl Brooks.

My daughter and I head home feeling like the holiday wasn’t complete this year.

“Well, so much for National Cookie Day,” my daughter mutters as we get into the car

But you know the expression: When life gives you a footlong Gingerbread cookie that nobody would ever want, you turn it into 3 or 4 chocolate chip cookies and add a little whip cream to two of them while you read before bath and bed.

We’ll stick with BAK’D next year.