Samwich

Waitresses wear little name tags carved out of wood, and the menu is littered with Southern aphorisms (“it ain’t what a man don’t know that hurts him, it’s what he knows that ain’t so”) and deliberately kittenish misspellings (“kuntry,” “samwich,” “shef”).

Within the red-and-white checkered world, we munched prosaic foods, what I called "samwiches," and nibbled from little baggies of washed fruit and crushed cookies. […] Even in the Bronx, it seemed likely that nymphs and naiads were afoot. Inspired, I might leap up to do a "dance of the samwich," a celebration of grape jelly that was a bit Dionysian. […] When I was 8 and she was 43, we had a picnic in the shadowed Ramble of Central Park. We did not know it was our last. We shared a final "samwich."

Piazza seemed relaxed when he arrived at the ballpark early yesterday, carting in boxes of hoagies and multiple pizzas for his teammates. “I’ve been doing it for a few years,” said Piazza, who was born in nearby Norristown, PA, and graduated from Phoenixville (PA) High School. “I missed it one day and [ex-Met] Lenny Harris said, ‘Where’s them samwiches?’ / “The guys love them.”

Naddie and I went to the park. We took a picnic basket and had lunch. I ate a peanut butter and jam samwich.

“I’M A MOTHER FUCKIN’ BAD BITCH; GO ON, MAKE ME A SAMWICH, YOU ANNOYING, LIKE VAG ITCH, SO LAME, IT’S FUCKIN’ TRAGIC… BAD BITCH, BAD BITCH.”