Cosi: Like an Angry Wife

There is a Cosi near our office. So close that sometimes, despite our better judgment, it lures us in with its flat bread indulgence known as a turkey and brie sandwich with honey mustard (that makes your nose tingle). Here's our problem with Cosi: Every. Single. Time we go, they f*ck up our sandwich. Here's what we order and how we order it: "Hi, may I have a turkey and brie sandwich with lettuce and tomato? With the honey mustard on the side?"

Let's explain why we order the sandwich this way. Once, we ordered by saying, "Hi, may I have a turkey and brie sandwich with lettuce and tomato?" Here's what we got: A sh*t-ton of honey mustard that made it impossible to taste anything else and gave us the mustard equivalent of an ice cream headache in the nose. Now we ask for it on the side: turkey brie let tom hon must side blah blah.

On three different occasions, we've made it all the way back to the elevators and into the office, closed the door and opened the bag to find:

1. Turkey, lettuce, tomato, honey mustard on the side. No brie ...on a Turkey-brie sandwich
2. Turkey, lettuce, honey mustard on the side. Brie? Tomato?
3. Turkey, brie, lettuce, tomato. No honey mustard at all.

We feel like we order one thing and get variations on a theme instead. So we started a new tactic. We watch them make the sandwich very closely and call out reminders when they (inevitably) forget something. None of this is easy while being jostled around by everyone else waiting for their sandwich. Nor is it particularly relaxing. Now, for the most part, the employees are very friendly. Smiles and friendliness. It's great. But it is also a little like having a doctor with a great bedside manner who holds your hand, gently informing you that he nicked your intestines while removing your appendix.

That brings us to last Friday when we succumbed and went into Cosi at 3 in the afternoon when it was virtually empty. "Hi, may I have a turkey and brie sandwich with lettuce and tomato...honey mustard on the side?" The employee reached for bread and then looked up at me. We said, "white." (No explanation on why we aren't diggin' their multigrain.) He opened up the bread and took an ice cream scoop full of ..he paused and looked up at me, scoop hovering, "You said turkey-brie, right?" "Yes, please." He put the turkey on one side of the bread, peeled three strips of brie off paper backing and placed them on the other side...all on top of each other. Then he smashed the sandwich together. He paused and looked up, "You wanted lettuce and tomato?" "Yes." He added it. Then he wrapped the sandwich and went to get honey mustard. He then placed my sandwich, chips and very sticky container of honey mustard on the counter. "Er, can I have a bag for this?" we asked as we watched a female employee bag another customer's sandwich. He said, "I'll do it at the register." This while we're looking at the stack of Cosi bags just inches from his fingertips. Really? You can't just put it one of those bags? We took the sticky container, sandwich and chips and stood in line while trying to reach for money. Just another day at Cosi... an exercise in patience and frustration. It's always something and it's never easy.

Going to Cosi is like asking your wife to make you a sandwich. She'll get up off the couch and do it, but she'll bitch the whole time and in the end, you're not sure it was worth it.

Cosi: We want a divorce.