"Miami Subs" … ? [Curiosities #22]

I want to see District 9 last night (fantastic, just as everyone says, and I’ll be there waiting when the sequel hits) and a peculiar thing happened. As I watched the bad guy’s head get exploded and his innards turned to flesh-colored cotton candy by a group of screeching aliens, I started thinking about Miami Subs.

Sure, if you’ve ever been to Miami Subs you know it’s perfectly natural to think about Miami Subs at any time of the day or night. Shit’s open 24 hours and it’s delicious.

But I don’t live anywhere NEAR a Miami Subs; I haven’t been to a Miami Subs since, let’s call it 1998. So why am I suddenly having memories of late-night trips to the somewhat popular fast-food franchise?

I can barely even remember the menu. They had subs — nailed that one down — but there was so much more. I remember hamburgers and super-sloppy sandwiches, which I usually hate but in this case equalled gooey goodness. But that’s it. Oh, and I guess they sell pizza now.

But back to the task: Why the sudden remembrances of the place I always went to at 3 a.m. or later?

Well, now that I think about it, it’s simple: The Miami Subs era represents a much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much (much, much, much, much, much), MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH simpler time in my life, and, now that things have cluttered up a ton, I yearn — nay, ache — for the carefree existence I enjoyed when I was 19.

Those jolly days were the exact opposite of the present-day, where I am faced with duties that I enjoy — such as changing diapers, performing marriage maintenance — but often find myself wilting under the weight of. Tack on a job search in a ridiculous area for a journalist and you’ve got a helluva stress soufflé to-go.

Hilariously I was actually very uncomfortable with myself at age 19 and rarely enjoyed anything; I’m much happier now and find the events of the period are much more enjoyable in retrospect than they were at the time.

Nevertheless: A lot of great memories are connected to Miami-fuckin’-Subs. A Nofx concert we went to, for instance. We didn’t have tickets; found tickets; saw a life-affirming show in which much of So Long and Thanks for the Shoes was played; drank beer; then, at the end of the night, guess where we ended up?

Not at Jack-in-the-Cocks. Not at McFeces (check out the feces-content stats and you’ll shit, ironically). Not at, er, Wendy’s (I enjoy Wendy’s … ) but at MIAMI SUBS! We’d order subs with melted cheese and try futilely to keep it from dripping all over the sleeves of our button-ups. Big fries; big drinks; big shits the next morning, you understand …

But — again — it’s more than that.

• We ate Miami Subs after tossing a smoke bomb into a yuppy couple’s convertible.
• We ate Miami Subs after a crying black lady stumbled into our apartment and complained about her abusive husband, who just “might be lurkin’ ’round” (yikes!).
• We ate Miami Subs after a double date, during which I essentially distracted a girl while my roommate put the moves on her friend. (The four of us went out to dinner one night and I was forced to send a dish back for the first time, apologizing the whole time. This isn’t how things are done in Florida. Strangely I didn’t score.) 
• We ate Miami Subs after attending yacht shows.
• We — and I don’t mean the “royal” we; a dude named Shane was my accomplice at the time — ate Miami Subs after a Portishead show (they broke up three days later). 
• We ate Miami Subs to be at Miami Subs. There were always crazy people, and many times there would be eight people in line at 4:34 a.m. like it was a Wal-Mart. 

Can anyone understand why I yearn for Miami Subs? This is one of the saddest things in life for me, not being able to take the feelings, activities, jobs and, most of all, people you love with you when you move away.

For someone who’s lived in California, Idaho, Washington, Colorado, New York (jesus I almost forgot about N.Y.!!!) and Florida, this is quite the sobering reality. I guess the point is we all have to accept the changes foisted upon us and learn from them somehow.

It’s a bittersweet process, but I’d wouldn’t give up my memories for anything in the world (not to mention they’re going to make me rich when I publish my can’t-miss, coming-of-age novel; HA!). Even a drippy, droopy Miami Sub. Of course there isn’t one in front of me right now or anything …