Sandwich

Today's pointless photo is not of a sandwich.

You know, in case you didn't get that on your own.

Which I'm sure you did.

The insect in question is, however, having lunch. Or supper. I can't remember what time I took the picture.

ANYWAY.

I had a sandwich for lunch today. This is interesting (no, really) for three reasons: 1. It means that my digestive system is behaving again. Enough for a sandwich, at least; 2. When I bring lunches (part-time job, remember. I don't always bring lunches) they're often just leftovers because I have trouble getting motivated to make actual lunches in the morning; and 3. I'm not really that much of a sandwich fan.

I should clarify that, I guess. First off, I got more than a bit turned off by lunch-kit sandwiches during my school days, to the point where my mother started letting me take cheese and crackers or whatever wasn't a sandwich but still mostly counted as a meal. Fast forward a few years, and you'll find me working in a sub shop (should I say the name of the chain?) for a few months after university. I was working here at the time, too, but it was only casual hours so I needed something else. Three months at the Subway shop twenty years ago was enough to ensure that I've never been back since. Granted, that was partly because of their food handling processes at the time (have they changed? No idea. I haven't been back), but it was mostly due to complete sandwich fatigue.

For a while, the only sandwiches I could do were hot ones. You know -- beef dip, turkey melt; stuff like that. I never made sandwiches at home... unless you're counting hamburgers and hot dogs as sandwiches, of course. I made those, but then they also fall under the hot sandwich category so it still fits.

So what changed?

Well, I still prefer hot sandwiches, but I'll pick up cold ones at the grocery store if I haven't had time to make one myself. If someone offers me a sandwich I won't stick up my nose.

That wasn't an answer, Dee. What changed?

It's going to sound weird, but I sort of discovered condiments. In the same way that Columbus discovered America, I mean. The condiments were already there, but I found out that I could make use of them.

It turns out that one of the reasons I got so sick of school sandwiches was that my mom's sandwiches (and, later, mine, since I was only doing what I was taught) were kind of boring. She was a decent cook otherwise, but somehow she didn't believe in sandwich enhancement. A roast beef sandwich was just that. Roast beef on buttered bread. Maybe iceberg lettuce along with that, but nothing else. It was an adventure for me when I tried adding pepper. Mayo? No such thing in the house. I don't know why she was like that, but she was.

And I didn't know any better, of course. Eating a sandwich at, say, a deli, was sort of weird and unpleasant because there was all of this extra stuff there. Stuff that I didn't know what to do with.

In case you wondered, I also use to scrape the extra stuff off of my hamburgers. Ketchup mustard only, please.

I've figured out along the way, though,  that the stuff can be agreeable.

Yay me. What amazing growth.





So, yeah. Sandwiches = not entirely undesirable, I've had a proper lunch for the first time in days, and I need to get back to work. The end.

Geez, these have been long posts lately.