This morning while riffling through my wallet I discovered I have exactly as much cash in hand as I had a month ago. The very same bills, in fact. This is what happens when all the nearby restaurants have closed—except Jersey Mike’s, for which I happen to have a coupon good for a free subway sandwich. However, Anne won’t let me out of the house in order to redeem it. “Is it worth risking death just to get a free sandwich?” she asks.
Luckily, we have plenty of groceries on hand—too much, in fact. In addition, we subscribe to a delivery service called Hello Fresh, which provides all the ingredients one needs to cook up a tasty meal. Problem is, the last three meal packages arrived without recipes, so I felt like a chef on the reality show “Chopped,” wherein contestants are presented with a hodgepodge of ingredients from which to concoct a dish within thirty seconds. And even though I wasn’t working against the clock, nonetheless, my take on spicy Korean bibimbap ended up on the chopping block.
While I’ve been sweating it out in the kitchen, Anne’s been busy upstairs sewing face masks. At first I resisted wearing mine; however, now I like it. It covers up my double chin! I can see now why cowboys always wear bandanas, even when they’re not driving cattle, sticking up banks or holding up stagecoaches.
Should this pandemic last much longer, I may start wearing a bed sheet with eye holes. Like the title character in David Lowery’s superb film “A Ghost Story,” I’ll stay put as time passes and the world goes on without me. My bereaved wife will miss me for awhile, but eventually she’ll move on, and out. Whenever asked what became of her first husband, she’ll explain that one day he was riffling through his wallet and came upon a coupon good for a free subway sandwich—and, being a Scotsman, he just couldn’t resist. Hence the epitaph inscribed on his tombstone:
ONE FOOTLONG, SIX FEET UNDER.
