at the coffee roasting company

Inspired by post #63 Expensive Sandwiches on everybody's new favorite blog, Stuff White People Like, I paid extra attention as I was waiting for someone in a coffee shop in the downtown area of my 'European' little California town the other day.

And I didn't have to wait long. Right in front of me two women sat down. They were white, in their 50s, and on the petite side without being skinny. They were dressed in outfits that women of their age sometimes refer to as casual and 'cute', and that are surprisingly childish. Socks with patterns, keds, cotton pants, and sweatshirts with animal applications.

These two had clearly been brought up to sit properly at a dining table. Knees and ankles together, elbows in. No spilling. No mistakes maneuvering tall wine glasses on a crowded table.

They each had a sandwich, and they split a bottle of red wine.

Their sandwiches were on focaccia bread, oily and chewy. Between the layers of bread I could spot brie, greens, mushrooms. It looked good.

It also looked hard to eat. The sandwiches were inches high. The women started by pressing the layers together and biting off small bites. It didn't go well. Then they tried biting from first the top, and then the bottom layers, while still holding the entire sandwich with both hands.

Bits of mushrooms and little leaves of salad kept falling out. Without missing a beat in their conversation about husbands and children ("he wants to buy a house but we won't be able to help him, and neither will his grandmother at this time") they lifted their forks, and proceeded to put everything that fell out back into the sandwich. They did this with skill, and with practice. They held on to the sandwich with their left hand, put stuff back in using the fork in their right hand. Then they put the fork down, and took another bite.

It was fascinating. I had never seen anything like it. The sandwiches were impractical to start with. But even more impractical was the habit to put the things back in. (Had it been me I would have picked up the stray pieces with my hand, and put them straight into my mouth, sans detour via the bread. And sans fork. Oh, correction. Had the pieces been oily I might have used my fork.)

It looked to me as if these women were trying to pretend they weren't eating with their hands at all. It also looked like a perfect example of middle class distinction: Setting yourself apart by developing irrational ways of doing things, and then proclaiming that those ways of doing things constitute good taste.