Unacceptable Behaviour Of The Lunchtime Variety

My husband ate my sandwich

Welcome to Baby Brain, a space where I - Charlotte, hi! - write about family life with three small children - Poppet (m, 4 years), Pickle (m, 3 years) and Peach (f, 7 months.) Those are not their real names. These are real stories from our days.

Last Tuesday, my husband ate my sandwich.

My reaction, for I am Ross

Then he ate his own sandwich.

And I was left with nothing.

*Pause for impact, allow time for reaction, continue.*

It had been a testing day. Having slept poorly, I woke to find the house in such a state of disrepair that for a split second I thought we’d been burgled. Not unlike the time I actually did arrive home to find I’d fallen prey to MacBook hungry criminals ("they really went for it in the bedroom" said the policeman I walked in to find stood in my kitchen, "oh no that was just me," I said) there was mess everywhere. Boxes of toys upturned, a now-broken lamp on its side and cereal thrown across the floor like flowers thrown at newlyweds, every room had been destroyed by Poppet and Pickle’s small yet capable (of mayhem) hands, leaving me with a time hungry job that I hadn’t known to plan for. We had a cleaner en route, and so my stress levels were sky high by 8:45, when my husband took the boys to pre-school, and I started to remove the signs of life they left behind. I wasn’t to know yet that my husband would eat my sandwich, but we were already on that track.

An aside about the cleaner: We have had several cleaners over the years, the one in the story of sandwichmagedden being a new one. My favourite cleaner (down the rabbit hole I go) left us after Peach was born due to traffic in the local area causing her too many problems. This was deeply upsetting because she did a fantastic job and also never once mentioned that my husband had showed her around our house with a slug in his hair the first time she came to us, which I think shows integrity. I imagine her seeing that slug and thinking not “this man has been in the shed, I should tell him about the slug” but instead “Jesus Christ these people need me more than I thought.” He discovered the slug after he'd finished his tour, bewildered as to why the nice woman he'd just been chatting to for the last ten minutes hadn't told him it was there. I choose to believe she thought it was a quirk of some sort, perhaps a pet. And sometimes I wonder if maybe she was afraid of us because of the slug and that's the real reason she left, but I try not to dwell on it. Please come back Hayley we need you.

Anyway, back to the sandwich.

The idea of a sandwich came from my husband. I’d walked to meet him at the gym in the hope of a lift home, having just abandoned a still-hot cup of tea during an ordeal with Peach that involved her screaming at the top of her lungs whilst hitting me in the face. Rocking and cuddling and offering my breast, I tried desperately to win back favour before admitting defeat and running from the coffee shop I’d nestled us into - a coffee shop I’d skipped her baby class to attend, which was perhaps the source of her rage? - pushing the empty pram she’s refusing to adapt to as many an older gentleman called out to inform me that there was “no-one in that pram love!” The abandoned cup of tea was to be the worst of my culinary woes that day, I hoped, not yet knowing that my husband would eat my sandwich.

Standing in the weight room of the local leisure centre, I watched the man I married finish his reps, dedicated as he is to his health while I myself survive on biscuits and a dream. “Do you want a go?” he said, gesturing at his mat, to which I said no. “I might go and get a sandwich if you fancy one?” he said, to which I said yes.

We drove to the sandwich shop and I placed our orders, my poor mood lifting. We drove home. We walked into the house and, remembering he was in the middle of the workday, my husband ran to his office, sandwich in hand. Less able to simply sit down upon entering the family home I, meanwhile, pottered about on tiptoe (I don’t like the cleaner to know I am not also cleaning when we both happen to be in the house), nursing my husband’s daughter (she’s my daughter too but for the sake of emphasis) and other such activities that are physically draining and result in a requirement for food/a sandwich.

After five minutes, I opened my sandwich - only to find that it was not, in fact, my sandwich. I had ordered a roast dinner sandwich (without a moist maker, though I would be tempted to try it) and this was not a roast dinner sandwich. This was a pesto, tomato and mozzarella sandwich, and I do not like pesto.

Knowing my husband as I do, I was overcome with a sense of impending doom. Launching myself off the bed and into the hall, I shouted "HAVE YOU EATEN THAT SANDWICH?" in such a panicked tone that I do believe both he and the cleaner - who would now bear witness to our sandwich related marital discord - assumed the sandwich in question to be poisoned.

"OH MY GOD YES WHY!?" he yelled back, emphasis on the WHY???

“YOU’VE EATEN MY SANDWICH” I shouted. ‘HOW DID YOU NOT REALISE IT WASN’T YOUR SANDWICH?” I raged. *ANGRY NOISE OF PENT UP FRUSTRATION* I frustrated.

Livid, I sat on our bed as he entered stage right, trying to suppress the laugh we both knew was brewing beneath the surface. “I wondered where the tomatoes were,” he said, the aforementioned laugh bubbling over as I glowered in fury. Solutions were offered, none of which involved turning back time to #SaveTheSandwich, and he returned to work, leaving me to stare angrily at the wall as my stomach growled and my hormones urged me to kill.*

My husband ate two sandwiches for lunch that day, while I had a can of coke (regular not diet, despite the assertion of every waiter in the land) and my own angry tears (on my guitar) (but not really, I don't play guitar but can't resist a pop culture reference.)

It has been over a week and he still has not replaced my sandwich. 

There will be hell to pay if this isn't fixed by lunch.

Look at him, the smug bastard, have you ever seen anyone look so well fed and self satisfied? (Daddy by Poppet, drawn on the day of ‘the incident’. Poppet has neither confirmed nor denied that the mysterious circle on the stomach is my sandwich.) ((We are very proud of this drawing despite my using it here to illustrate a comedic point. Love you Poppet you are a wonder.))

P.S. A life coach or therapist reading this may take a step back and say “is this really about a sandwich or is this a metaphor for deeper issues within your marriage?” To which I say we had a great marriage until he ate my sandwich and now I don’t know who he is anymore, is it possible for someone to eat your dreams because I think that might have happened? I love him but what will he eat next? My chocolate? (He already eats my chocolate.) My children? My Substack subscribers? My ARMS? WHY WOULD HE EAT YOUR ARMS CHARLOTTE I HEAR YOU CRY BUT I DON’T KNOW JANIS I DIDN’T THINK HE’D EAT MY SANDWICH BUT HE DID? This madness may never end but also, life coach or therapist, my marriage is going well I just really wanted a sandwich.

*Peach has started weaning onto solids and is nursing more erratically as a result. My hormones don’t know what to do with themselves. This about sums them up:

It’s fun.

Until next time 🥪