8 MAR 09: Simple Meals Made Hard

If you haven't taken advantage of the "Million Subs" link we posted several days ago for a free sandwich, you're too late. The Quiznos offer reached its goal in less than a week. If you printed out all one million coupons, the stack might match the competition's "five-dollar foot long" in length.

But I feel a need to apologize, if you tried to print out even one of the free Quiznos sandwich coupons. Believe it or not, it took me about an hour to print one -- as if I was trying to force the entire sandwich out of a printer. And that probably would have left the printer toasted, instead of the food....

Problem #1: I have no working home printer. In fact, I have a history of faulty printers. A Xerox model I bought off the OfficeMax showroom floor ten years ago had problems with evaporating ink. My most recent one from Best Buy did well for four pages, then started jerking all my pages to the right and jamming. Smells like a subtle message from Democrats, doesn't it?

But anyway: since blog readers haven't sent enough contributions for me to fix my printer (hint, hint), I did what I usually do for computer printing. I went to a local library, which charges ten cents a page. OfficeMax's copying rate is up to nine cents a page, so this isn't a bad deal -- if you don't mind sorting out coupon pages from a 14-year-old's love letters.

Problem #2: I went to the South Columbus branch library. Even though it's added several new computers in recent months, three of the main ones were out of order -- and a couple of working computers refused to take my library card for logging on. It was a bit like playing musical chairs, except the music would have been too loud for a librarian to accept.

Problem #3: Once I found a computer which liked my library card, I found the "Million Subs" coupon was on a web site where I could only print one time. After that, it wouldn't work. Wouldn't you know - when I went through the printing sequence, the coupon refused to print. Sad to say, the South Columbus branch library was living up to its reputation. If Fort Benning knew, it might make the watch list.

I went to a librarian to seek help, but the woman admitted she didn't know much about printers. So she did probably the worst thing she could have done - turn the printer off and on. Apparently that canceled my one-and-only print job. I lost ten cents, had no free sandwich coupon - and wondered if I should have simply taken a digital picture off the screen.

Thankfully, Quiznos offered a second chance for a free sandwich. You could e-mail invitations to four of your friends. So I sent them to two other e-mail accounts that I have. Keeping a Power Frisbee address for two-and-a-half years finally paid a dividend....

But I knew better than to roll the dice with the South Columbus branch library anymore. So I hopped in the car and drove to the Mildred Terry branch near downtown. That allowed a few minutes for my invitations to land in the other InBoxes. It's a bit like the baseball saying - you can't outrun your e-mail.

At the Mildred Terry branch, I went through the printing sequence once more. But it appeared Problem #4 would develop, as the printer again provided an excruciating wait. The library computers seem to struggle with the "flash" software related to the coupon. And I already knew the staff members were no flashes, when it came to solving problems.

It seemed to take about three minutes of printer blinking -- but with no staff members interrupting the process, my Quiznos coupon finally printed. The best sandwiches are never touched by human hands, during preparation....

(Oh yes - I sent sandwich invitations to three other people from the Mildred Terry branch library. I don't know if they ever bothered to print them out. For all I know, my free food could have become nothing but spam.)

The sandwich turned out fine, when I ate it a few days later. But I realized it had cost me 20 cents and a good bit of time. As any Fort Benning soldier quickly learns, the price of free food truly isn't free.

We have another restaurant chain to discuss along these lines -- but we're writing "under the gun," because of the switch to daylight time. So we'll continue this topic Monday, and spring forward to a wrap-up of weekend news:

+ Which woman with blond hair is going up to strangers in the Ellaville area, claiming to have a sick daughter and asking for "gas money?" I'm hearing when she approaches truck drivers, suddenly she (ahem) offers instead of begs....

+ Continental Carbon announced because of the tight economy, it will stop one production line at its Phenix City plant. In related news, cars across Columbus South will look 50-percent brighter this summer.

+ WLTZ reported three-fourths of all the students at Richards Middle School visit the school nurse at least once a month. Does this make the case for funding school nurses -- or show we need more money for physical education teachers to promote good health?

+ A federal appeals court upheld five of the seven guilty counts for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Now how could this be? Didn't Karl Rove conspire with a Republican District Attorney to trump up the charges? Or did the appeals court decide the trial jury had enough Democrats who actually considered the evidence?

+ Jay Sparks resigned as Columbus State University women's basketball coach. He'll remain athletic director - but at least he's setting a fine example for men's coach Doug Branson to follow.

+ Auburn's men improved their NCAA basketball tournament chances by lashing Louisiana State 69-53. Then the women's team trampled Tennessee 78-58 in the Southeastern Conference semifinals. Do these teams happen to share a "co-ed" dorm?

+ Instant Message to an unknown homeowner in the 600 block of Broadway: I like the flowers you've planted next to the sidewalk - and appreciate how you left the tags on, to show they're purple pansies. But at this time of year, it was all I could do to avoid thinking of Kansas State University.

SCHEDULED MONDAY: A stunning claim about a former Columbus elected official.... and it comes from his wife....

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