This is the same sandwich I get at Le Petitt’s (that’s how it’s spelled, really) a couple times a week—three times if I’m feeling a lack of initiative.  Provolone, no mustard no mayo, lettuce tomato onion peperoncini.  I’m forever trying to recreate a sandwich of the past, from the deli next to my father’s Italian tailor, probably from around the time I was eight or nine.  The sandwich was dressed with oil and vinegar, as was proper.  In those days I would have been eating all manner of Italian meatstuffs, which is almost surely why no sandwich will ever taste as good as those of memory.  The countermen spoke Italian and wore a sheen of imported oil on their soft, strong hands.  This I know because upon our every visit, they’d shake my father’s hand, then mine.  I’d been taught to have a good grip, even at that age, and I could take some pride in showing strength.  The closer you were to them the more they smelled like something old and alien, a not-light application of strange cologne and soft, fine wool.     They would have rightly given a vegetarian a rough go of it.  The bread here is more sour, which I enjoy, but they use what they call “balsamic vinegarette,” not a more straight-forward red wine vinegar.  A properly dressed sandwich should always be a balance of flavors, such that no single element steps to the fore.  It is for this reason that I dislike how balsamic took the market share of vinegar—the fake stuff is sickly sweet, lacking in depth, and missing the sharpness vinegar ought to impart.  But the ladies who work here are wonderful, and a half sandwich is three-fifty, ideal when you want to pretend that you’re saving money, and perfect for those times you cannot stand another lunch at your desk.  The radio is tuned to KOIT.  Your chances of hearing “The Lady in Red” are pretty good; the Kenny G, you tune out as best you can: a soft-rock roulette, if you will. The radio station has begun their Christmas programming, so I expect I will not enjoy another simple sandwich until December 27th.   
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This is the same sandwich I get at Le Petitt’s (that’s how it’s spelled, really) a couple times a week—three times if I’m feeling a lack of initiative. 
Provolone, no mustard no mayo, lettuce tomato onion peperoncini.  I’m forever trying to recreate a sandwich of the past, from the deli next to my father’s Italian tailor, probably from around the time I was eight or nine.  The sandwich was dressed with oil and vinegar, as was proper.  In those days I would have been eating all manner of Italian meatstuffs, which is almost surely why no sandwich will ever taste as good as those of memory.  The countermen spoke Italian and wore a sheen of imported oil on their soft, strong hands.  This I know because upon our every visit, they’d shake my father’s hand, then mine.  I’d been taught to have a good grip, even at that age, and I could take some pride in showing strength.  The closer you were to them the more they smelled like something old and alien, a not-light application of strange cologne and soft, fine wool.    
They would have rightly given a vegetarian a rough go of it. 

The bread here is more sour, which I enjoy, but they use what they call “balsamic vinegarette,” not a more straight-forward red wine vinegar.  A properly dressed sandwich should always be a balance of flavors, such that no single element steps to the fore.  It is for this reason that I dislike how balsamic took the market share of vinegar—the fake stuff is sickly sweet, lacking in depth, and missing the sharpness vinegar ought to impart. 
But the ladies who work here are wonderful, and a half sandwich is three-fifty, ideal when you want to pretend that you’re saving money, and perfect for those times you cannot stand another lunch at your desk.  The radio is tuned to KOIT.  Your chances of hearing “The Lady in Red” are pretty good; the Kenny G, you tune out as best you can: a soft-rock roulette, if you will.

The radio station has begun their Christmas programming, so I expect I will not enjoy another simple sandwich until December 27th.   

The sight provokes an involuntary reflex: immediate loss of appetite, greasiness of hair, a profound muscular ineptitude that guarantees tripping over air in front of the patricians. You already know how it ends.  Ruined on the first day, too eager with the knowledge of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk (having constructed a model that summer); sitting in the front of the class, not the back.  Finally, crushingly, last year’s backpack contains these failures to assimilate.  No Velcro Trapper-Keeper, no romping unicorn in space.  Don’t count on redemption through lovingly-inked band names, best to keep eyes forward and let them copy that Scantron.
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The sight provokes an involuntary reflex: immediate loss of appetite, greasiness of hair, a profound muscular ineptitude that guarantees tripping over air in front of the patricians.

You already know how it ends.  Ruined on the first day, too eager with the knowledge of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk (having constructed a model that summer); sitting in the front of the class, not the back. 

Finally, crushingly, last year’s backpack contains these failures to assimilate.  No Velcro Trapper-Keeper, no romping unicorn in space.  Don’t count on redemption through lovingly-inked band names, best to keep eyes forward and let them copy that Scantron.

But I digress: I was looking up the grid (you know, the thing that makes that last bite of cake cone and ice cream a transcendent experience) and came across this odd bit. Used to have Mormons as upstairs neighbors in one of my first apartments in the Richmond.  These folks, they were alright, but their proximity meant an excess of elders my age knocking on our door.  I’d tell them I was down with the story of Joseph Smith (I’m a sucker for myth and history), but that they were wasting their time.  My earnest nature convinced them, and they’d leave.  Also that I’d fix for them large tumblers of scotch as soon as they sat down.
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But I digress: I was looking up the grid (you know, the thing that makes that last bite of cake cone and ice cream a transcendent experience) and came across this odd bit.

Used to have Mormons as upstairs neighbors in one of my first apartments in the Richmond.  These folks, they were alright, but their proximity meant an excess of elders my age knocking on our door.  I’d tell them I was down with the story of Joseph Smith (I’m a sucker for myth and history), but that they were wasting their time.  My earnest nature convinced them, and they’d leave.  Also that I’d fix for them large tumblers of scotch as soon as they sat down.

If you buy something really large you can get it shipped on Greyhound

It will cost next to nothing, but then will take two months to get to you.  But that’s just the problem—it doesn’t come to you.  It goes where the Greyhound goes, and if you’re in San Francisco, that’s the Transbay Terminal. 

So you walk around that museum of urine, trying desperately to get your freight, and eventually you do, glad you had the interaction with the station agents, the somnambulant security guard, and the freight manager who tells you that your package got there three days ago, good thing they didn’t send it back.

Godspeed, Transbay Terminal!