Chomp!

By Ron Aiken
February 22, 2014

Snowpocalypse, Vol. II!!! Return of the…Sandwich?

Does snow make people want sandwiches or what?

It’s always puzzled Chomp! that when inclement weather strikes, suddenly bread becomes the most prized item in the universe, flying off shelves faster than fresh water, faster than beef or – God forbid it should ever run out – life-giving chocolate.

Is there an equal run on mustard and mayonnaise? Does the bigwigs at Kraft in their top hats and monocles watching a 1920s-style stock ticker (it’s how I imagine the workings of Big Cheese big cheeses) see a bump on cheddar cheese single futures every time it snows south of Virginia? I bet not.

Nope, it’s bread we crave, and white bread at that! You can keep your wheat bread, your pumpernickel, your multi-grain for some other part of the country, some other type of ‘pocalypse. I don’t even think people make a run on biscuits, even though they’re pretty much the same thing. I’ve never heard someone say, Gonna be an ice storm; power may be out. Do we have enough biscuits? What’s the biscuit situation?

Nope, it’s bread and milk. Which, by the way, you can’t even do anything with together that’s worth a darn unless you’re a pastry chef and you also have plenty of sugar and eggs. I’m not even 100-percent sure that guarantees you anything you’d want to eat.

The sandwiches of my youth were wonderful creatures – bologna, mayo, mustard, processed cheese slice, Wonder bread. It was ready in like 17 seconds, and now I have a mobile food product. White bread also was great fish food. You take a tiny piece, roll it up in a little ball the size of a BB, wet it in your mouth and you have bait that any species of fish will go bananas for. Forget killing crickets, forget handling worms, white bread is the be-all, end-all of your baiting needs.

It also is held in great esteem by ducks.

So maybe I’ve been missing the whole point of the run on bread after all. Maybe it has nothing to do with sandwiches or bread pudding or toast. Maybe it’s a cheap way to guarantee your family fish and duck in perpetuity. Fish and duck certainly sound better than toast. Maybe even better than biscuits.

So I’m going to go ahead and stand corrected up in here. I’ve talked myself around, and in the process figured out a way to feed myself and others luxurious dinners through ‘pocalypses present and those yet to come. In the meantime, if you need me, I’m easily found. I’ll leave you a trail of crumbs of … something. Don’t know what yet. Maybe cheese.

Til next week, and hoping you survive. Enjoy!