PB and J Memories

It’s funny how memories come back at the strangest of times.

I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I really do.  

I normally make them on some sort of wheat bread, one those large, soft loaves you buy from the store.  I love homemade bread when I can get it, and sometimes–as a treat–I’ll go with sourdough.  

This afternoon for lunch, I ate a few leftovers (mostly vegetables), then decided I needed a sandwich as well.

Two slices of bread, a healthy slathering of peanut butter (crunchy…it’s almost always crunchy) on one piece of bread, and a significant dollop of strawberry jelly smeared on the other: that’s a good sandwich.  I picked up the knife to slice it in two, and a memory hit me.

Well over 40 summers ago during my early teenage years, I was involved in some sort of activity that had me out of the house during the day.  I don’t remember what it was, nor do I remember the circumstances in which my mom packed my lunch one of those days. Honestly, I don’t think she always packed my lunch, but that one particular day she did.

For whatever reason, a friend of hers was over at the house that morning, and she was in the kitchen with my mom.

It’s funny how the details are blurred.  Be assured, though, if I can’t remember them exactly, I’ll embellish them the best that I can.

Anyway, she–the friend–asked me if I wanted my sandwich cut in half.

I don’t think “snarky” was a word back then, but apparently my response to her question struck her a certain way.

“Of course I want it cut,” I must have said.  Or something along those lines. I don’t believe I was rude, but I think I already mentioned I was a teenager.

Some hours later, my ravenous teenage self opened a Tupperware container to find my peanut butter sandwich cut in half.  Those halves were cut in half, those cut again, and probably another few times after that.

My sandwich was cubed, at best.

I survived that day, and I enjoyed my sandwich this day.  Not nearly as much as the memory, though.