sandwich

He buys coffee, a bottle of water, and a sandwich from the grocery store deli. He goes home and he tells her, “I got coffee, a bottle of water for work, and a sandwich.”

“Nice,” she says. “Will that be enough?”

“Sure, I think. I might get something else after work.”

He eats his sandwich. It has salami, honey ham, and turkey.

“Do you want some?” he asks her.

“Can I have a little? Like maybe break off part of it.”

“Sure,” he says and he hands her the whole thing.

She takes it and holds it and stares at it for a while.

“What does it have on it?” she asks.

“I’m not sure. Like salami or something called genoa or genocide or something.”

She separates the bread and looks at the meat and the bread and the cheese and separates the meat from the cheese and then the meats from the other meats.

“This is off colored,” she says.

“I think it’s supposed to be that way.”

“No.”

“I think so, yeah. It’s like salami. I think it always looks like that.”

“No, babe, this is bad,” she says and she tears a piece of the salami in half, setting the darker half on the table. She tears more of the meats, setting the darker variation of it on the table and looking at the remaining meat and the sandwich as a whole.

“Are you okay?” she asks, looking at him.

“Yeah, just frustrated.”

“What? Why?”

“I feel like you’re making fun of my sandwich,” he says.

“What? I’m not. I’m just trying to make sure you aren’t eating bad meats.”

“I would have eaten it,” he says.

“I know. But this is not good. This sandwich has old meat on it.”

“It’s fine,” he says.