My Dad is a creature of habit. Most of his life, he did the same thing, every day, in the same way. Once he found something he liked, he put it on autoloop.
At some point in his senior citizen years, Dad discovered the joys of a simple sandwich. It probably happened innocently enough: One day my Mom probably made him a turkey sandwich and he liked it. For most of us, this would simply be a nice meal. For my Dad, it became a religion.
I discovered this several years ago when my Mom was in the hospital having her hip replaced. I took my Dad down to the cafeteria with an offer to buy lunch. "No thanks," he said. "But Dad, you have to eat," I said. "I will. I brought my lunch," he explained. This made no sense. My Dad wasn't a "lunch bucket" kind of guy. At his prime, he was an expensive-suit-polished-loafers-executive-lunch kind of guy.
We sat down in the cafeteria. I got myself a sandwich and he pulled a manila folder out of the bag that he brought to the hospital. He then pulled a turkey sandwich out of the folder. Yes, he brought a sandwich in a manila folder. Maybe that was his way of making the transition from executive lunch to lunch bucket. I have no idea.
Every week, my Dad would set up a turkey sandwich assembly line. He'd make 7 half-sandwiches. One for each day of the week. He'd put them in the refrigerator and then, before eating, microwave them for exactly 13 seconds. EVERY. DAY. He loved these sandwiches and offered them to the few of us that stopped by. This was his life. This was my Dad.
Wikipedia defines The Sandwich Generation as "people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children." With one kid still in college, this perfectly describes us.
Welcome to Manila Sandwich. Part madness, part common sense, part faith.
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