This isn’t exactly important news, and it’s not something I personally discovered – it was posted on Reddit’s r/mildlyinfuriating sub-reddit. But it’s just sort of incredible it happened at all. It’s a frustrating tale of a hit-and-run, something nobody likes, but at least in this case the bare minimum was done, which involves leaving a note that apologizes and gives some contact info. Except in this case, the note isn’t really legible, and it’s not so much handwriting-related but medium-related. Because the medium for the note was, in this case, a slice of bread.
Here’s the original post:
The person that hit my car used a sandwich as a note.
byu/DanskaAmbassaden inmildlyinfuriating
Yes, a slice of what appears to be pretty conventional store-bought white bread! The original poster of the image, who goes by the very Scandinavian-important-sounding handle DanskaAmbassaden, refers to it as a “sandwich” but from what I can tell it’s just a lone piece of bread. The text on the bread is pretty hard to decipher, but we can maybe enhance things a bit and try?
Let’s see if we can improve this at all, using the Autopian Mainframe (recently upgraded to an Amstrad 512 PPC) and its recently-developed baked-goods linguistic extrapolation subroutines:
Okay, maybe it can’t do all that much. But I think I’m pretty confident saying that first line is “SORRY ABT” and that last one I do think is a phone number? The middle lines could be an email address, too. I think whomever left this note was earnestly trying with some very limited resources at hand.
I mean, sure, all of this could be a hoax, but why? The car and the resulting damage isn’t shown, which is perhaps a bit suspect, but I can also easily understand how someone confronted with a note written on bread might be so baffled that they forget some other basic things like the damage to their car.
I think what makes this such a strangely arresting story is that, somehow, I think we can feel this person’s shame and desperation, telegraphed through the absurd choice of bread to leave a note. Was this bread taken from the sandwich they made the night before for lunch? Or did they happen to just be back from a grocery store and had a loaf/notepad handy? I can picture the furtive scrambling around, and the desperate attempt with the bread, the shame, the fear, the sandwich.
I suspect the ink was supplied by a Sharpie, also.
I’m hopeful that with the attention this bread-note is getting, maybe the person who hit the parked car will reach out and provide contact information for the car’s owner via some more legible medium.
You know, like on a tortilla.
Actually, now that I think about it, if we assume this bread was liberated from a sandwich, I wonder if any of the other likely sandwich components would be any better? I feel like we should do some quick tests – I ran out and got the baseline components for a National Bureau of Sandwich Standards Baseline Turkey Sandwich: that is American cheese and sliced turkey.
Here’s how those took to Sharpie-written messages – first, the cheese:
Honestly, not bad! The slight intaglio effect caused by the pressure of the Sharpie nib helps compensate a bit for the lack of ink retention. Wiping the tip off on my pants helped a bit, too, at the expense of my pants. I think a slice of cheese could have been a better option than the bread.
Let’s see what the turkey does:
Oh jeez, this is a disaster – hardly any ink retention, tearing, no legibility-enhancing intaglio effect – this is a mess, a goddanged mess. I’m glad the car-hitter did not attempt a cold-cut note, which also likely would have smelled worse after sitting on a windshield in the sun.
Just for giggles, let’s see how a tortilla could work:
Hey, that’s not bad! Plenty of room for information, pretty good ink retention, it’s all fairly legible! I think we have a solution, people! Everyone should carry some tortillas and a Sharpie in their cars for the next time they carelessly smack into a parked car!
This feels like an adult ed edd and eddy bit.
Eddy broadsides someone’s car in the process of executing a scam, Ed feels a pang of conscience alongside Double-D and they try to scribble a note on a piece of toast Ed has in his coat.
“BUTTERED TOAST!”
Seems like a dot matrix type of printing with a sharpie would be far more effective across all of the mediums. A little pokey poke.
Where was the bag or wrapper that the sandwich came in? I’m assuming this was brought from home somewhere in America because that is a really, really sad looking piece of bread, so how is there no container? Was this person just rawdogging a sandwich out in the open with no packaging for transport on hand?
That’s what I would’ve used for my note: the baggie. I’ve used sharpies to label a bazillion little parts baggies in my life, so I know that at least works.
Another hit and run vehicle mystery.
Not much info on this one.
No blurry pictures of moving tail lights.
No real clues to speak of save a note written on half a sandwich.
How is it possible that after rummaging through your car a slice of bread is the best thing you can find to write a note on?
That’s insane.
Wait…
https://www.theautopian.com/watch-us-ruin-a-car-to-determine-the-safest-foods-to-eat-while-driving/
Could be a white, 2006 Scion xB.
If you already damaged someone’s car by hitting, why not go all the way and just write your number with sharpie on their car? You could even circle pre-existing damage and note that that dent in particular wasn’t your fault.
Somebody’s gonna be toast.
Just watch out for the cheese notes, if you’re in Philadelphia. Use gloves to handle it.
I mean, Cheez Whiz is just one step away from qualifying as an industrial lubricant. You could’ve written your phone number on the car in ultra-processed cheese product, man!
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/julian-kimble/philadelphia-swiss-cheese-masturbator-sentenced-to-8-years-probation
I think that qualifies as cheese jizz, not necessarily Cheese Wiz.
OOF. Yeah, that’s not going to be legible at all.
I would expect a note written on a piece of bread to just say, “I hit your car. Eat me.”
I don’t see much info on what kind of damage was done. Maybe a wrap would cover it?
Is there enough mustard on the test sandwich to try writing a contact number on the windshield in it with your finger?
Just wait until Capt. Gantu finds out Experiment 625 went joyriding again. Blitznak!
Hopefully he wasn’t allergic to gluten either, that’d just be all kinds of wrong.
“Wiping the tip off on my pants helped a bit, too, at the expense of my pants.”
Ed McMahan: HEEEEYYYOOOO!!!!
The lunch meat result is pretty disappointing. I was hoping I could just shave off a sheet from my bumper ham.
At least they sort of tried to do the rye thing?
Their message doesn’t cut the mustard.
No, but there’s no use crying over spelt milk.
Do the Rye Thing, featuring the Public Enemy song ‘Fight the Flour’
I got Naanty-Naan Problems (and a Whisk Ain’t One)
Cheese-us, people! Lettuce stop with these ri-pickle-ous puns!
You mean it’s a naan-issue?
It’s a wonder this guy stopped loafing around and left such a rye message anyway. Hopefully the victim has a lawyer capable of pumping for nickels at an adequate rate. I admire the idea of a bio-degradable message system. It’s clearly the greatest thing since… um, since…
since squeezable condiment bottles?
SPOONFULS OF MAYONNAISE!
<3
Dang, I’m seeing this too late and realizing all the other puns are toast, you clever batard.
About a decade ago I was driving through downtown Denver on St. Patrick’s Day when someone frizbee’d a tortilla onto my windshield. I brushed it off with my wipers while trying to recover from extensive bafflement (I mean, who throws a Mexican flatbread item on an Irish holiday?!) and now I’m left wondering if I missed a phone number on the other side…
That is known as the tortilla pickup. It is the universal language for “would you like to share some fajitas?”.
Oh gosh, people used to fling tortillas off of the suspension bridge in Waco. That was a thing to do when I was at Baylor. I guess the town was that dead?
That feels like a freakbait “today’s mission” item when it’s done in a town with actual things to do.
And now you know why I drive around with a pack of tortillas in my glove box. You never know. And everyone knows, Provolone cheese just won’t cut it!
Torch, I’m impressed. As a long time tech nerd around your age, I have not only heard of but actively used most of the old computers you joke about. Especially the Apple II — that was my first computer. But you made me go look up what an Amstrad PPC was and I thoroughly enjoyed the rabbit hole.
Edit: I see it can be powered by 10 C-cell alkaline batteries. I can’t help but wonder how long that would last! Those are non-rechargeable and based on the voltage drop when running on alkalines, I’m guessing it would refuse to run on the rechargeables of the time.
The Amstrad is a serious upgrade on the Commodore Pet 4016 that things were running on last year. Matt recently mentioned that another upgrade is in the pipeline this weekend, I wonder if Jason recently acquired an Amiga 500?
Probably something stranger – like a Soviet BK 0010-01. Those were basically miniature clones of the PDP-11, which made them pretty powerful.
If that message was left on an HEB butter tortilla I might even be all that mad.
Ok, I’d probably still be upset my car went smash but seriously those butter tortillas are so good.
I’m hooked on these! I love making breakfast tacos with them.
You don’t write on deli meat.
You very carefully nibble your message into it.
Obviously.
Unless it’s Boar’s Head, then, right now at least, you projectile vomit the message onto the ground.
FWIW I’d already forgotten about the car 😮
We could dig into the tortilla discussion a lot more but I think it would turn out to be a circular argument.
Bwahahaha!
We’ll just end up going round and round.
Well, thanks for Ratting us out 😀
You came up with that and just had to Lay It Down, didn’t you…
Test lettuce, hopefully whole leaf and not shredded, but you should test both, because science.
Yeah, and tomato. Now I’m picturing a whole series: see which classical sandwich should be in your car at all times for note-writing and survival needs. Definitely not BLT, not pastrami, I can see some interesting attempts with PBJ and egg salad and tuna…
George: “Well, I’m also an architect. Is that pastrami?”
Vivian: “Yes it is. I find the pastrami to be the most sensual of all the salted cured meats. Hungry?”
George: “Very.”
Science has proven that lettuce is longer lasting than a certain British Prime Minister, so you’ve got that going.
If using shredded lettuce, then you spell out the message on the windshield like using sticks on a beach. The lettuce should stick to the glass pretty well, so you just block letter out the message.