The Sandwich Index

There comes a time every spring when I count down the remaining number of school days. Last night, I determined we have 38 days left. 38 mornings to rouse people, 38 drives there in the morning. 38 drives home. 38 drives there in the afternoon. 38 drives home. It doesn’t seem so bad until I add them up: 152 legs, back and forth. I’m not alone in this, though. There is no bussing at our kids’ school, so hundreds of other parents are in the same station wagon.

However, I can say with overwhelming confidence nobody will go through as much bread.

38 days. 38 lunches X 6 school-aged kids = 228 packed lunches to go. If each child has a sandwich each of those days (and they will, because we lack imagination, a school microwave, and time to get cutesy) that means 456 slices of bread stand between us and summer break.

I wondered how tall that would be, if stacked into a tower. I estimated each slice is 1/2 inch, for simplification. That means two slices are an inch, which brings us back to the number 228. 228 inches = 12 19 feet.

12 19 feet of wheat. (EDIT: Well, this is just embarrassing. My math was wrong. It’s 19 feet. 19 feet of wheat.)

That’s a lot. That’s taller than two Darth Vaders, a giraffe at full-grown glory, an ostentatious Christmas tree. It’s exactly two three husbands, if mine is the benchmark.

But we’ll manage. Somehow, the mythical stack of bread will shrink until there is nothing but a few crumbs. We’ll wake up one bright day, stretch, scratch, yawn, and consider how there is nothing to do, nowhere to be, isn’t it lovely? We’ll eat a typical breakfast. An hour later, one of the kids will say, “What’s for lunch?” and I’ll say something about making sandwiches and taking them to a park.

~dreaming of this~