So I was eating a cheese and turkey sandwich the other day, blindly going about the whole business as usual, layer by layer: first the top piece of bread, then the slice of cheese, the turkey, a quick tongue inspection of the mustard on the bottom slice of bread, and then the bottom slice itself.
The Roommate thought it time to point out the obvious, because he’s good with the obvious: “You know, normal people don’t eat their food like that.”
“And you’re telling me this because?”
“No reason, I’m just saying. A sandwich is a sandwich because you’re supposed to eat all of those things together. Otherwise, you’re just eating a slice of cheese, some turkey and some bread.”
“Why do you have to disrespect my food and shit?”
“In no way am I disrespecting, dirty. It’s all good. In fact, I shall now go off on a somewhat tangential although not entirely unrelated description of how to eat a Snickers® Bar. It goes something like this:
“After unwrapping a Snickers® Bar halfway and holding the bottom, wrapped half, you slowly remove the outer chocolate shell using your teeth in the best woodland forest creature fashion. Like this: (makes furry creature gnawing noise).
“After getting to the wrapped portion, you then de-nougat the bar.”
“You do what?”
“De-nougat. Remove-the-nougat.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. While de-nougating, eat one bite at a time, being careful not to shave off any of the caramel and nut portion. If you feel that you might have difficulties with this procedure, it is perfectly acceptable to take a ceremonial first bite and assess the sedimentary terrain and ratios of the layers of chocolate, nougat and caramel/nuts.”
“All of this is while you de-nougat?”
“Yes, now let me finish. After you have reached the wrapped portion, you have two choices: 1) To take the de-nougatted caramel nut layer into your mouth whole; or 2) To deftly rotate the wrapped portion by splitting the wrapper all the way open and using both hands to rotate the un-denougatted portion and rewrap the denougatted portion, holding it in your hand to finish the denougatting process.
( blank stare from she who de-layers her sandwiches )
“I prefer the first method, it’s less messy and doesn’t warrant any stray judgmental ‘get-a-load-of-this-obsessive-compulsive’ stares from the straights.
( continuing blank stare from she who de-layers her sandwiches )
“Then you can either consume the whole caramel/nut layer or just take a small bite. The idea is to savor this part of the exercise. You’ve worked hard to get here! Let the caramel soften, separating the peanuts from the caramel. Deposit the caramel, chipmunk style, into a cheek, and enjoy the nuts separately, as opposed to having them embedded and overpowered by the caramel, cranky chefs at Mars, Inc. notwithstanding. The caramel can then slowly melt about the inner mouth area, prolonging the satisfaction of the Snickers® bar.”
“Can I finish my sandwich now?”
“Are you going to eat that pickle?”