The Columnist Manifesto

One of the little indignities we well-fed people all suffer is the occasional compulsion to buy food that we know will be really bad and overpriced because we're a captive audience. At the airport, of course, or for me, the lunch stand in the law school buidling. The least objectionable food today was a ham and cheese sandwich that looks like it was made by a sullen 12-year-old, with two slices of ham and one of cheese slapped between two large, floppy slices of bread. No nuthin else on it. $3.75.

And how's this for holding down labor costs: The sandwich wasn't even cut into halves. What is it about holding and biting into an uncut sandwich on bread shaped like this

that makes it taste like a slab of recycled paper?