It Was a Tuesday. There Was a Sandwich.

It was late on a Tuesday morning, and the light came into the conference room sideways, the way it does in old photographs of banks.

I had been told there would be a working lunch. Nobody mentioned the lunch would be doing the working.

The sandwich was already seated when I arrived, in the chair across from mine. It was white bread, ham and tomato, with the lettuce worn like a ruffled collar. It stood taller than the desk lamp and did not rise when I entered. I made a note of that.

I called the meeting to order at 11:02 and read all nine agenda items aloud. When I asked for objections, the sandwich offered none, which I have since learned is its way.

At 3:15 we broke for coffee, fifteen minutes exactly. The cup came up to my chest and the biscuit was the size of a coin, and I want it entered into the record that both were the correct size. That recess became Coffee Break.

Afterward I wrote a follow-up email, and then a follow-up to the follow-up. Anyone who has typed "per my last email" with complete serenity knows the posture. You sit up very straight and let the coffee go cold on its saucer. That afternoon became Per My Last Email.

The sandwich and I have still not reached a resolution. The first meeting did become the first shirt, though: The Committee, with me, my desk, the green lamp and a sandwich of unreasonable size, drawn in the faded inks of a storybook from a grandmother's attic.

Wear it to the meeting that could have been an email, or give it to the coworker who keeps the minutes nobody reads. They have met the sandwich.

W. Marsh, Chair