A Sandwich Story

Got up early to pack my small backpack for a little countryside stroll--a sandwich I bought yesterday, a bottle of water, extra socks, raincoat, etc. Then I headed down to the Dijon Ville station to buy a round trip ticket to Barges (a quaint little town ten miles south of the city). After getting the ticket I decided to get a little something to eat because my train didn't leave until 12:49. Why not another sandwich? That way I could eat the old one now and save the fresh one for Barges if I needed it.

So I wandered into a little deli and asked if they had any sandwiches without cheese. (Anyone who knows me understands that dairy doesn't agree with me--I brought a bunch of pills with me to help with that, but before I go on a long walk in the countryside, I figured I would play it safe). The nice man went in the back to make me a sandwich without cheese, because you just don't find any in france that are already made that way. I told him I just wanted ham on it and nothing else, and I was happy when he came back with just that.

However, as I was walking back toward the hotel, eating the sandwich, I discovered that it was, in fact, a ham and butter sandwich. Or, rather, butter with ham. The amount of butter on this sandwich was nothing short of staggering. A small child could have stuck it's arm straight down into the layer of butter up to the shoulder and still not have found the bread. And on the other side of it there was even more. So, I quickly swallowed a pill to combat the few bites I had taken, and figured I would just throw the sandwich away and go get another one. It was only 2 euros so it was no big deal. Pitty I would have to throw away a whole sandwhich, though. What a waste of butter that would be! France's dairy industry must have suffered such a shortage after that sandwich was made, that I feared I would be discarding the last butter sandwich the country would see for months.

Luckily, I passed by a homeless woman on the way to another deli and I gave the sandwich to her. So much better than throwing it away. And imagine how surprised she would be when she realized that she could survive the next year on the butter from that sandwich alone!

I was headed to the deli where I bought the sandwich that was already in my backpack. They put cheese on all their sandwiches, but I can just remove it and throw it away (although now I may consider selling the cheese since the price of dairy has surely skyrocketed).

As I walked along, I passed by another homeless person sitting on the street begging. This time it was an old man holding out a top hat. "Sorry, I'm all out of sandwiches," I said to myself as I passed him.

The regular deli was out of sandwiches too, so I kept walking until I found another one. I chose a ham sandwich with some cheese on it that I could remove later, and the woman behind the counter promptly placed the sandwich in a hot press that melted the cheese all throughout it in a process that would be impossible to reverse without the control of time itself.

The place was busy and I wasn't in the mood to speak french anymore, so I took the sandwich and headed back to the hotel, handing it to the old man as I passed him again.

Then I went up to my room, drank a shot of gin, and ate half of my old sandwich. I had been saving it for today anyway.