The Joy, The Ambience, And The Wonderful Flavors Of Romano's Deli

One day, my friend Paul Romano saw, Jim, one of the guys in our youth group eating a piddly little weak sandwich from a local sandwich shop and asked, “What is that pathetic thing?  Do you call that meager scrap a sandwich?”

Jim said, “What do you mean?  This is good.”

“Good?!?” said Paul and he almost fell out of his chair, coughing and gagging in disbelief.  “That’s not even a real sandwich, that’s just some sorry little pretend deal!  I’ll have my wife Susan make a real sandwich for you sometime and then you’ll know what a sandwich is!”

Well, that little encounter was a stroke of good fortune for a whole bunch of us today because after the 11 o’clock service at church, Paul & Susan set up “Romano’s Deli” for the youth group and their parents.

I was very excited to get in on this.  Paul had told me on several occasions that Susan made the best sandwiches ever.  “They’re the best, Dan!” said Paul, and then he would smile and make me do 20 push ups, always promising, “This is for your own good.”

Well, today I finally had a chance to sample several of Susan’s specialties and they were…let’s see, what’s the one specific word I could use?...Oh, here it is:  “INCREDIBLE!!!”  And “FANTASTIC!!!”

I know, that’s two words, but that’s how good it was.  In fact, I think I’ll coin a new word to describe it:  INCREDI-TASTIC!!!  (*NOTE:  Don’t try to use this new word without my permission, I’m going to copyright it.)

The blend of meats and cheeses, the sauces and spreads, each kind of bread soft and fresh and perfectly selected to form the base of the sandwich it helped to create.  I took a bite of “The Italian” and—this has never happened to me before—as the full effect of the flavor overwhelmed my palette, I actually levitated about 2 inches off of my chair, just for about a minute, or so.  Paul is right, Susan does make an amazing sandwich!

It was INCREDI-TASTIC!!!

(I know, it’s already dumb and annoying, isn’t it?  Drats!  I thought I was on to something, but I guess not.)

“Romano’s Deli” was a fantastic success.  We all had a great time breaking bread and talking and just being together.  And we all discovered an important lesson: a sandwich actually can be a delightfully profound metaphysical experience.

(Actually I don’t know exactly what that last sentence means but it sounds like it’s suggesting something very enlightening and meaningful, so I’m going to leave it in.)

After things were cleaned up and put away in the kitchen and we were getting ready to leave, I told Paul, “That sandwich was so good that I actually levitated for a minute or two as the taste sensations took me to new levels of flavorful experience!”

Paul looked at me and then he looked at my stomach.  Then he looked at me and then back at my stomach again.  Me…then stomach.  

And he made me do 20 more push ups.

“It’s for your own good,” he said.