Lunch Bag

Let us all sigh for the days when we packed ourselves glorious lunchboxes. I'd settle into the lunch corner and hunker into my sandwich: the layered garden lettuce, the slab of cheddar, the mayonnaise slathered not just on the bread but between other sandwich strata -- a recurring oily emulsified geologic event between the Bread and Cheese and Lettuce years -- and such fluffy wholewheat homemade bread years! sliced so thick I had to perform a caesarean to ensure a live birth of sandwich from sandwich bag. Like a ship in a bottle -- how did I finesse myself such a packing job late last night, all sleepy impatient to get to bed and annoyed at this chore that only reminded me of how soon I had to rise again, and brush my teeth, and go to school?

I marketed those sandwiches! For $2.50, my classmates would place orders the day before, and have themselves a wholesome lunch.

Sigh indeed. There are no glorious geologic sandwiches nowadays. Just celery and peanut butter and, when I am feeling happy, raisins for ants-on-a-log. A chicken sausage. A glob of yogurt. An apple that I'll probably save for my bike ride home.