Sandwich + Floor = @#$@%&*^%^

Pan toasted Italian bread, roast turkey, summer tomato, Swiss cheese top, loosely cover and leave to chuckle away on the stove for 15-20 minutes.

Boil a few ears of corn, wash blueberries, bride at the table her favorite yellow two pronged corn holders at her side.

The Reveal, damn! that's a good looking sandwich, open face, brown toasty bread, bubbling cheese, ripe red tomato peeking through a sheen of white yellow Swiss.

I transfer the first piece to the cutting board, knife slips through melted cheese, slight resistance from tomato and turkey, Crunch into the bread. On to my wife's plate, she looks happy.

Now mine, the one with just a slice or three of habanero buried under the cheese. Just as I get within inches of the cutting board it falls to the floor face-down, cheese squishes, tomato goes flying, turkey sticks to the floor, golden brown bread stuttering across the floor.

Son of a B*tch!!

No 5-second rule here, total disaster. My wife kindly offered to share her sandwich, but I opt to make another. I should have just had corn and berries as I had no patience, rushed the sandwich and ended up with still chilled turkey on slightly burnt toast with barely melted cheese.

Oh, and it was completely my fault, as I was using a chefs knife for a spatula instead of the appropriate wider surface, which would have precluded a fall, of a spatula.

Enjoy,
Gary

No picture...of you weeping?

A sad story, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of improper uses of kitchen utensils.

I think we should make it into a Lifetime TV Movie--"Not Without My Sandwich" starring George Clooney as you, Angelina Jolie as your wife and Valerie Bertinelli as the sandwich.

I'm confused, you do not keep your floor clean enough to eat off or you could not find the proper spatula to recover from this debacle.

During one torrent relationship I survived I actually scraped what was left of din din off the wall with the one third of the plate that was left after it was thrown at me. I still reminisce about how well the veal was plated as it sailed towards me at just under the speed of sound.

To this day I know in my heart it was not me being two hours late that made the meal somewhat unpalatable but the grime on the wall, counter top, floor.

Gary,

So, are we to believe the sandwich just hurled itself to its own demise, all on its own accord, while you just looked on helplessly, only inches away? Around my house, we call that pulling a Julia Child. I thought I was the only one those things happened to. On top of it, I usually have the kitchen window wide open. My neighbors are convinced that I suffer from Tourette's Syndrome.

-dave

A well told story of a sad misfortune. I think we can all feel your pain, although the fact that it was a completely finished meal that met it's untimely demise, makes it hurt just a bit more.

my condolences on an opportunity lost. i feel your pout.

David Hammond wrote:No picture...of you weeping?

Last I wept was when Lem's at 59th and State closed.



Lem's on 75th is, happily, still open.

From the European Journal of Physics 16 172-176 1995

Well worth reading in its entirety, but here are some highlights:

Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the Fundamental Constants
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a widespread suspicion among the public that toast sliding off a plate or table has a natural tendency to land butter side down...

when the problem of toast sliding off a plate or table is examined more carefully - with the toast modelled as a thin, rigid, rough lamina - it turns out that the public perception is quite correct.

...Having made this depressing discovery about the nature of our universe, I felt duty-bound to come up with some ways around it. After all, we should not be fatalistic about such things. There are any number of daft ways (eating from 3 metre high tables, eating tiny squares of toast, putting the butter on the underside, tying the toast to a cat, which of course knows how to get right-side up during a fall, etc. etc). ...

If only you had been a meter or two taller, or laid your sandwich on the back of a cat...

Oh I feel your pain. Last night I came home exhausted after an 11 hour day and started a pot of seafood bisque warming on the stove. I go to move it and the pot slipped from my hands and spilled all over the floor....many choice words were uttered.