My Life as a Sandwich… #SandwichGeneration

I’m part of the Sandwich Generation.

Sandwich Generation. What a quaint term. Until quite recently it’s not something that I thought applied to me. But now, blam, here it is, I am part of a multigenerational sandwich.

A sandwich, something tasty and quick you serve up for lunch. What I pack into my kids’ school bags every Monday to Friday. Pack I think is the key word here. Packed. Squished. Two slices of bread to either side and I’m the peanut-free spread in the middle.

I have in-laws who are in their 70s and I also have kids who are still in grade school. One slice of bread to the left, kids who need me to care for them, and one slice of bread to the right, ageing in-laws who need me to care for them, and me, in the middle, spread thin.

It gives new meaning to the term “spread thin”. I make shoddy sandwich filling. Spread too thin — patchy bits adhering to each slice of bread, a bit to the left, a bit to the right — nothing much to speak of in the middle. 

I mean there are three ways you can make a peanut butter sandwich:

You can put all of the peanut butter on the top slice, and then stick the bottom piece to it and the bottom ends up sort of coated too.

Or you can put everything on the bottom slice, stick the top one on and hope for the best.

Or you can try and split it evenly and spread a bit out on each piece of bread and then jam them together and ideally, each piece fills in the cracks on the other side.

Either way, if you smooth it all together and then try and pull the two pieces apart and eat them separately, it’s a mess. Either way, when you pull it apart there is nothing left standing on its own in the middle.

In my case I feel like there’s also this other slice of buttered toast off to the side, sitting off on its own on a side plate — that’s my husband.

There’s nothing left to spread on that third slice of bread (and it’s cranky and stale and crumbling).

Does peanut butter ever feel guilty?

Screw peanut butter. 

I think I’d rather be BALONEY.

A nice thick slice of baloney — stick it between two slices of bread, maybe add a little mustard or some lettuce, and you’ve got yourself a decent sandwich.

Baloney doesn’t crumble to bits or get stuck to one piece of bread or the other. Baloney doesn’t just sit there in a lumpy puddle, waiting to be spread on one piece of bread or the other.

Baloney can stand on its own. You can eat it up solo, but it tastes better with these two slices of bread.

And baloney can go right into the fire and come out on the other side.

You put it in the frying pan and cook it up, it fries and sizzles and changes shape and just keeps on going.

I’m pretty sure baloney goes out on its own occasionally. Leaves all that bread at home and does its own thing  — but peanut butter? Peanut butter just sticks to everything and leaves bits of itself everywhere until there is nothing left in the jar.

If I have to be a sandwich, I’d rather be baloney.

What about you?