Blame it on the Sandwich by Cleo       It was the perfect summer day: a big brilliant sun was beaming down from a bright blue sky1. Nothing says all-American summertime fun like a picnic. So I packed myself a lunch, slid into my American flag-print bikini2, and headed out on my picnic.       So I’m eating my all-American bologna3 and cheese with mayo on white bread, when I have this epiphany. Ohmigosh. If I keep eating fatty processed foods this bikini will soon become as unflattering as it is in real life. Then I had an actual relevant epiphany. Bologna4 and cheese is life.       Bologna and American cheese are not food5. At least not in the strictest sense of the word. So if I saw a bologna-producing animal grazing in a field, what would it be? A cow, a goat, a pig, or, maybe, a giant rat? Vegetarian propaganda aside, isn’t bologna really bits of whatever lumped together with a healthy dose of chemicals and preservatives and whatnot? American cheese: in some countries, cheese is almost an art form. People appreciate subtleties in flavor and color. Here we just process the hell out of it.       This is not merely a bitter diatribe on the unrefined American palate. I told you this is a metaphor. Bologna and cheese is mediocrity, indifference, and apathy. Like I said, it’s life.       Frankly, I don’t give a shit…and chances are, you don’t either. Apathy: it’s the hallmark of our smarmy little middle class society. There are great issues, great injustices about which we should be passionate, but we aren’t. It seems as if we seize every opportunity possible to turn a blind eye to the world around us.       In the world today children are starving, being sold into sexual slavery, and making our Nike sneakers. And I don’t care. I pretend that it doesn’t happen.       In the world today people are being persecuted for what they believe, or don’t believe, for their race, their sex, and their cultural background. And because those people don’t act like me or don’t look like me, I don’t care.       In the world today, there are families on the streets and people dying from curable diseases. And I choose to believe that things like this can only happen in other countries. And I choose to believe that it isn’t any of my business.       What do you expect? We’ve replaced love and compassion with Hallmark cards, Celine Dion, and “Sex in the City.” We’ve replaced democracy with blind partisanship and empty rhetoric. And we’ve replaced Christianity with shallow self-affirmation and insincere praises to an unknown God. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t love anyone very much. We have lumped together bits and pieces, processed the hell out of them, and we’re more than satisfied with the bland, nutritively void result. Before we can open our eyes to the world around us, we must direct our gaze upon our selves…and realize the fallacy of our bologna and cheese existence. Bologna and cheese is life. And it’s time we feed the damn sandwich to the pigeons and get on with life. ______________________________ 1 Are you counting the number of times the letter “B” appears? There will be a prize for the reader who’s the closest to correct. 2 For those of you who actually know me, rest assured, I made that part up, but as the only female member of the editorial staff, I feel obligated to add a little sex appeal. 3 Actually, I’m a vegetarian. No animals were harmed in the writing of this essay. It’s a metaphor. Just shut up and focus. 4 You know, that letter “B” didn’t count. It didn’t just appear; I actually wrote it. Damn it! I’m an English major and this is my craft. Have you no respect? 5 Why the hell are you still looking down here? Have you read one good and useful thing in these footnotes? I didn’t think so.

ALONE By Irwin sitting here tacky music on the radio trendies wander past my door I sell my life eight hours at a time $5.15 per hour my life is worth $842,128.00 before taxes WHEELS By Irwin One Thursday while I was headed to work. I decided to take the back road to avoid cops. My journey seemed certain, safe. There was a 90 degree left turn in the road, I hugged the inside like any courteous motorist would, when out of nowhere a small angry man who was also attempting this turn (from the other direction) decided I was dangerously close ... He may have even applied his brakes. We were close, not too close but close enough. I could see he thought I cut him off ... as I drove by, his eyes were disgusted by the sight of me; the veins in his forehead swelled and his face turned completely red as though he were attempting a bowel movement. I watched my rear view with amazement as the enraged midget did an illegal U-turn to follow me. Did he want to pull me over and fight or was he intent on running me off the road? He tail-gated me for a few blocks before speeding off on a turn. I think he got my license plate #; maybe he called the cops, or got my address and will shoot me as I leave my home some morning. Poor fellow, he'll still be a short, angry, balding man, with a bad job and an ugly wife. And I will always have the last laugh.