Sorry, Ben Franklin, beer is awesome but the Club Sandwich eats awesome for breakfast.
I spent the first nine years of my life living in a part of Pennsylvania that could charitably be called impoverished and even by that place’s standards we were poor.
It was just Mom and me and it was a stuggle for her to keep us both going. Things you’d never think of were luxuries and even simple things like cinnamon-sugar toast was something of a splurge.
In the midst of all that, there was something that would temporarily deliver me from everything if I could manage to pull together $0.25: the Costas Club Sandwich.
Made by a local candy company in the next town over from where Mom and I lived, the Club Sandwich is a simple thing: two peanut butter and saltine sandwiches side by side and covered in milk chocolate to make a shorter and thicker than usual candy bar.
It was chocolatey, delicious, and cost a quarter – quite a bit cheaper than things like a Hershey or Reggie bar at the time.
Eventually Mom moved, I eventually moved to live with her, and the Club Sandwich became the sole happy memory of an unhappy time I tried to forget.
Decades later, I found myself in a conversation about the best things we ever ate and my mind drifted to the Club Sandwich.
Afterwards, I spent some time searching the web and – to my surprise – not only was Costas still alive and well but the Club Sandwich was, too.
I stared for a long time at their antiquated online order page, wondering if I should let the Club Sandwich live forever in my past as the sole comfort of a hungry and lonely child or if I should order it as an adult and risk finding that it really wasn’t as good as I remembered.
For just about a week I went back to that page, stared at it blankly, and just felt paralyzed. Just because I’ve more or less dealt with the demons of my childhood in therapy doesn’t mean I wanted to revisit them, but I eventually felt that it was necessary to order the Club Sandwiches to reclaim even that tiny shred of my life.
When they finally arrived, the box lay unopened on our dining room table as the same paralysis took hold.
I eventually gathered my courage, opened the box, and the wrapping was *exactly* as I remembered. It felt like I was having an asthma attack as I could feel my chest constrict, but after a moment I realized it was just a momentary panic attack.
Definitely not the reaction I had hoped for, and I began to doubt the wisdom of the purchase.
I started breathing normally and I seized my chance – before the panic could come back I ripped open the yellow and clear plastic wrapped, bit down hard, and saltine crumbs flew everywhere.
For a moment, I was that cold and lonely and hungry child again, but then I was who I am now again and realized that I was eating the most delicious thing I had ever eaten or ever would eat.
The first one was gone within seconds and the second one didn’t last much longer. Deep inside of me was that young child now fully aware that he could buy as many Club Sandwiches as he could ever want and, for the first time perhaps ever, he enjoyed a moment of pure happiness.
I had just wrapped up eating the third Club Sandwich when I began to wonder if it was just sentimentality that was making me enjoy them so much. As I was mulling this over, my wife walked in as I reached for a fourth and began unwrapping it.
She looked at me, the empty wrappers and the mess of crumbs on the table around me and made oinking piggy noises.
“Whatcha eating?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said and closed the box.
She walked over to the table, opened the box, and picked up a Club Sandwich to read it.
“It’s a Club Sandwich,” I said through a cloud of crumbs. “Peanut butter, crackers, chocolate. I ate them as a kid. Cost a quarter.”
She turned up her nose and I was happy. More for me.
She stopped walking away, though, and came back and took it from me. She sniffed it and took a nibble.
I saw a look in her eyes that caused my chest to seize again as she started eating my Club Sandwich and wouldn’t give it back.
I had my answer about whether or not they really were as good as I remembered but at the unfortunate cost of having to share them now.
Damnit.
Proust had his Madelenes and I have my Club Sandwiches. Having had both of them, I’m the better off of the two.
