Thing I Love #3

Thing I Freakin' Love #3: Huge Sandwiches

This one is really heavy, guys.  I am writing today about one of the most important things in my life.  A subject that is near and dear to (and clogging) my heart.  A subject that brings a smile to my face, a tear to my eye, and a jiggle to my butt.  I am talking about huge HUGE sandwiches.

Me with a fantastic sandwich, and a woman's body for some reason.

Foot longs.  Paninis.  Turkey sandwiches containing two and a half turkeys.  Roastbeef piled higher than the Empire State Building.  Italian meatballs, tuna salad and everything in between.  These are the things that dreams are made of.  Shangrila is a world full of sandwiches.  The hills are made of provolone.  The mountains are made of delicious breads of all shapes, sizes, colors and consistencies.  The rivers run rich and deep with mustard, spicy mustard, ranch dressing, oil, and vinegar.  The grass is made of red and white onions.  Golden-green rainbows of banana peppers paint the sky.  Black olives and bacon are as common as flies are here in our reality.  In the land of my fantasy, every day is both Christmas, and free-sandwich day.  And they never remember your face at the counter, so you can walk back and get as many sandwiches as you want.  They will never know.

In Shangrila, my heaven full of deli meats and condiments, the clouds crack open once daily with the peel of tremendous thunder, and God rains down Frank's Red Hot Sauce in sheets across the land.  It is a beautiful place.

Me in Shangrila.  Sandwich tree.  River of spicy mustard.  Onion fields.  Provolone mountains.  And a Red Hot storm approaching in the distance.  

I recall the time of my first sandwich.  Some people doubted my parents when they gave me, a four-year-old child, a sandwich that was twice as long as me and almost as tall.  But I have been given a gift, friends.  A holy gift.  I have been given the gift of loving, appreciating, and being able to consume, ginormous sandwiches.  I put that first sandwich, a turkey club, to rest and asked for seconds.

I continued eating my mom's delicious sandwiches for years, occasionally having a Subway sandwich here and there, but always wanting a little bit more.  Then came that fateful day when I consumed my first "Silver Mine Sub's" sandwich.  A glorious masterpiece of culinary craftsmanship, the "Dodge City", a sandwich overflowing with various Italian meats, nearly brought me to my knees in tears because of the stunning flavor and texture and the sheer weight of it.  If you haven't had a "Silver Mine" sandwich, please believe me when I say that your soul is gently sleeping, never having been truly awake, and all you need is one of these big fat sandwiches to bring you to LIFE, brothers and sisters!

From that point, I was hooked, and have since eaten probably four and a half, or nine MILLION sandwiches from Silver Mine.  Their restaurants are located all over the northern Colorado region, and so I am blessed to live here.  When I say that I will never leave Colorado for long, I'm sorry to say, it's not because I have family and memories here.  It's because of these gargantuan sandwiches that bring me more pleasure than any combination of drugs or carnival prizes ever did.

Speaking of "gargantuan", along these lines, we cannot forget to mention Jimmy John's.  They are the national sub sandwich chain of choice in America, and they deliver their sandwiches fast, including their "Gargantuan" sandwich, which is described as follows on the Jimmy John's menu:

This sandwich was invented by Jimmy John's brother Huey. It's huge enough to feed the hungriest of all humans! Tons of genoa salami, sliced smoked ham, capicola, roast beef, turkey, and provolone, jammed into one of our homemade French buns then smothered with onions, mayo, lettuce, tomato, and our homemade Italian dressing.

It is a modern marvel and a triumph.  I have eaten enough of these to kill a normal man.  But, again, I have a gift.  My mother knew when I was only four.

Every SINGLE time I see an advertisement for a sandwich, I get on the phone and order one right away.  It is an illness, some say.  But to me, it is a way of life.

I succumb to my baser instincts in this photo.

All in all, I would have to say that a world without gigantic sandwiches would not be one in which I would want to exist.  And until I transcend this earthly body and mind and enter into the paradise of Sandwich Shangrila, that beautiful landscape in my dreams, I will just have to continue eating all of the sandwiches I can possibly get my hands on in this realm.  

I would expound further on this topic... but I have some work to do. 

(I would like to thank my lovely girlfriend Jera for helping with the art on this particular post, as well as for taking the photographs.)