The Belly of the Beast

in which I recount the saddest story ever told

This is a story for all the girls and boys out there who were afraid, up to this point, that it was impossible to send a sandwich through the the US Postal System. Let us rejoice! For the world is rife with possibility. And please do not be shy, I know there are a lot of you out there, just waiting to provide your friends and lovers with the best that sandwiches have to offer. So let us begin.

A few months ago, when I was still living in the South Bay Area and rarely even stopped to remember that such a thing as "sleet" existed, my friend Rachel came to me with a problem.

"I was hungry," she said, "and we were out of chips. I tried to go to the store, but I couldn't get the top up on the car, and so I just sat there in the garage, sadly banging on the hinges of the car top, getting hungrier by the minute. And the worst part of it is, even if I had gotten to the store, they would only have had those stupid, healthy, organic chips." It's worth noting that it was also a dark and stormy night. Let's ignore for the moment the fact that our poor bereft waif was trying to dive a convertible.

Rachel was living with well-to-do relatives in New Jersey which attending a sadly lacking graduate school. Before you start thinking that she is a fat, lazy, chip-hungry maniac with poor eating habits, you should know that she is one of the thinner, healthier people I know - the very person who taught me what polenta was. I plan to use the rest of this story to illustrate her intelligence, but if you're not convinced, you will be once she has her PhD.

Being the kind and generous soul that I am, I quickly sent her a box of chips via parcel post, which I am told she ate happily. In return, she told me about a deli near her house with sandwiches so delectable that an ex-resident of the town, who now lived in San Francisco, had them sent to him every week.

"I will send you one of these sandwiches," she said. "And then we'll be even."

Days and weeks go by, each one more sandwichless than the last, and eventually I sort of forget that we ever made this deal. So one Saturday afternoon, while I was out on a walk, I happened to miss the mailman when he came to deliver me a package. I looked at the sticky slip on my door, completely baffled as to what this package might be. It wasn't my birthday. It wasn't Christmas. What's left? I assumed my parents were most likely to be responsible for outright benevolence, and didn't think much of it (since I am an ungrateful whelp). It was too late to go to the post office, and for whatever reason they couldn't re-deliver until the following Tuesday.

Finally, my long-awaited package arrived. I was at work when this happened, but Dave sent me an email.

"I don't think you're going to be very happy," he says. "It was a sandwich. Past tense."

Suddenly the whole conversation about New Jersey and magical delis comes rushing back, and I gaze in mute horror at the screen. My perfect sandwich. My lusted-after sandwich. My gift sandwich - it was all disappearing. And it was all my fault for not being more proactive about going to the damned post office.

When I got home that evening I looked at the now-moldy wunderkind of mail-order sustenance, which Dave had lovingly placed in the refrigerator for my perusal. It was not packaged for long-term survival, just wrapped in layers of wax paper and placed in a thick envelope for Fragile things. It was delicate and ephemeral, like all good things on this earth.

Unfortunately, although it still smelled awesome (no, really!) it was not to be ingested. And so I made the long march out to our apartment building's dumpster, and shoved it unceremoniously inside to be baked into further putrescence by the California sun.

And then I shed a tear. I'm sure that, by now, you're all crying with me.

HOWEVER. Don't lose heart yet. For after explaining to Rachel the sad fate of her benevolent gift, she promised to send another one some day, with better planning and execution.

"Because you really should taste that sandwich," she said.

And so, flash forward to this past Monday, when Dave let me know that I had received yet another missed package slip, this time on the front door of our apartment in snowy Chicago (the discerning reader will realize that I have transitioned, in the course of this post, from "sleet" to "snow." You're getting up-to-date weather reports, people). I knew that Rachel had been in New Jersey again, this time doing some research for her Masters thesis. A familiar, sinking feeling developed in my gut. I would never taste the sandwich of my dreams, I decided, and I should just learn to live with it.

But, this tale has a happy ending. For this time, I did not have to wait an entire weekend-and-then-slightly-longer-for-no-good-reason-goddamnit - indeed, the package arrived the very next morning, safe in David's loving arms. For some still-unknown reason, he didn't devour it on the spot. What a nice boy.

And, more important than either the mail system or David's hibernating appetite is the true fact of Rachel's brilliance. For this package contained not only the sandwich and some wax paper, but also two items of insulating iced tea.

Bravo, Rachel! And bravo to you, gentle reader, for getting past the saddest story ever told and on to the happy ending. How many times in your life will you ever again be able to muster the same courage?





******It should be noted that on days when I'm terrified by the prospect of applying to MFA programs and simultaneously bored at work, sandwiches are often all I can think about.

******Photo credit: http://www.phinker.com/phink85.htm