I Saw a Guy Eating a Sandwich

I’m downtown today and I’m walking around. Downtown Minneapolis has lots of places for people to sit outside during the summer. From green spaces to little pop-up picnic tables and benches, there’s no lack of outdoor seating available so people can have the picnic experience in the middle of the workday.

So like I said, I’m downtown today and I’m walking around and I see this guy sitting on one of those benches and he’s eating lunch. Forget the fact that these benches are, for the most part, dirty and bug covered and bird poop covered, and I can’t figure out why anyone would want to sit on them, let alone eat on them, but there he is. Picnicking. Enjoying summer with the dirt and the bugs and the poop.

I slow down to spy on him because I’m always interested in what people are eating. He’s got his brown paper bag resting on the dirty/buggy/poopy bench and a largish sheet of wax paper is spread over his lap. I notice he’s wearing these really long black Oxford-looking shoes. They’re laced tight, very shiny, and there’s like a curlicue pattern at the toe of the show. I’m struck by how long the shoes are and I wonder how he walks without tripping over his feet.

Anyway, the wax paper is spread over his lap and he’s got a sandwich laying on the paper. It’s that perfectly square white Wonder bread type of bread and he’s pulling the top back to show me what looks like just one slice of that perfectly square individually wrapped American cheese. Like Kraft American Singles. He’s holding the top slice of bread with his right hand and with his left hand he’s holding a small packet of mustard and he’s spreading the mustard over the cheese.

I don’t know how he got the packet of mustard open; he must have done it while I was hypnotized by his shoes.

As I pass him I see him putting the top piece of bread back down onto the yellow mustard-topped yellow cheese and he smooshes it around to spread the yellow mustard evenly over the yellow cheese.

Bon Appétit, Mr. Pointy Toed Shoes Guy. But a yellow cheese, yellow mustard and Wonder bread sandwich strikes me as weird and it doesn’t do anything for me. It’s not that I’m any sort of expert, but I used to like eating a lot of weird food combinations. I haven’t done these in a long time but cream cheese covered bread topped with hot dogs split down the middle with the wiener valley filled with peanut butter and topped with American cheese. Or a peanut butter, mayonnaise and lettuce sandwich. Or a peanut butter and sweet pickle sandwich. Or a mayonnaise and french fries sandwich. Or a peanut butter, lettuce and sliced onion sandwich. Or fried eggs and peanut butter. Or Oreos and peanut butter. (Yes, I like peanut butter) I could go on but I don’t want to run the risk of making you any queasier than you already are.

So that’s it. A short walk, a pair of eerily long shoes and a sandwich that I’m not sure the birds or squirrels would want. At least not without any peanut butter on it.