Author's Note: This idea randomly came to me and I wasn't going to write it because prose isn't really my thing, but the potential for an "LBB" reference pushed me over the edge.
Emmett Forrest wondered how he would ever make it as a lawyer being so utterly unobservant and altogether oblivious. The thought occurred to him as he stood in line at Hold the Tomato, a sandwich shop that he had walked by nearly every day since he started Harvard Law, yet had not once seen. That is, until today.
He had no idea why, as he cruised down the sidewalk on that particular brisk November day, he turned his head to the right just as someone opened the door to the sandwich shop. The bell over the door dinged, and an enticing aroma drifted out onto the sidewalk, causing Emmett to freeze in his tracks.
He turned to the store and looked up with a feeling of wonder, full of the joy that pleasant discoveries like this one always bring to their discoverer. Emmett assumed it must be a new business. He never considered that he could have, for years, completely ignored the outlandish three-dimensional sign above the storefront awning.
Really, it was less like a sign and more like a work of art. Two enormous hands held competing representations of the shop name. One hand simply clutched a page from an order book where "hold the tomato" had been written in red ink and triple-circled for emphasis. The other hand gripped a bright red tomato. The visual pun was clever enough to transform Emmett's amazement into amusement.
Then he noticed some extra words on the sign: "Est. 1998." The restaurant wasn't new at all. It had been there since 1998, years before Emmett started attending Harvard. Years before he started walking down this street every day. How could he have possibly missed something so glaringly apparent?
The door opened again as another customer exited Hold the Tomato with a (tomato-less?) sandwich in hand. The concept was particularly appealing to Emmett because he hated tomatoes. He conjectured that his typical "no tomato" addendum would not be considered a "special order" in this place. On the contrary, it would be the given, the norm. It was that thought that convinced him to enter the restaurant.
With one customer ahead of him, Emmett waited and continued his self-inflicted mental beat-down. He was really going to have to open his eyes and become aware of the places, people and events around him. He couldn't just go on like this, missing the obvious, not seeing what was staring him in the face.
"Can I help you?" a girl's voice asked Emmett.
Emmett had not noticed that the man in front of him had collected and paid for his own sandwich already. It was Emmett's turn to order and the teenage worker behind the counter, whose nametag read "Kate," had already counted off the ten seconds she always gave people so as not to make them feel too rushed.
Emmett blinked and shook his head, contemplating the possibility that he was a lost cause on the road to full awareness. He collected himself enough to place his order, though he hadn't yet looked at the menu.
"BLT with no—" he stopped himself.
Kate smiled and asked, "First time?"
Emmett nodded and wondered aloud, "Does this place even have a BLT?"
"Yeah. Well, kind of. Obviously, we hold the tomato. We also add some extra bacon. We call it an LBB… or LB-squared, if you're nasty."
Emmett tilted his head, considering the possibility that she was making some pop culture reference that he didn't understand, something unlike the sandwich shop. Not something he had passed by, but something that had passed by him as he studied for his law classes or the bar exam.
"Like the Janet Jackson song," Kate explained without any particular tone of judgment, "I'm Janet. Miss Jackson, if you're nasty."
"Really? Those are the lyrics of a song? Like a song they play on the radio?"
"Yep. It's called Nasty."
"Huh. I have to say… I did not know that."
Kate laughed and shrugged it off, not particularly surprised or annoyed by this fact.
"So… what'll it be?"
"I'll take the LBB," Emmett told her, deciding that he couldn't possibly possess whatever being "nasty" required.
"Coming right up," Kate promised.
Sandwich in hand, Emmett walked out of the store and remembered where he was headed in the first place. He retrospectively wondered if he should have ordered a sandwich for his study partner. Actually she wasn't really his study partner so much as a study prisoner, but he was the humanitarian sort of study nazi who would be willing to provide her with little nourishment to go with her Red Bull.
He decided, in the end, he could do with the sandwich what he had done with his time and knowledge: share.