If you’re like most of us, you love eating toasted sandwiches for lunch. What you don’t like are all those toasty crumbs that end up scattered everywhere. The good news? You don’t need to live like this any longer.
Whether a grilled chicken sub, a cheese steak, a hummus-n-feta, or a Cheesy Goo Bread, everyone knows—whether they admit it or not—that toasted sandwiches are more delicious than those on soft, untoasted bread. Particularly in sandwiches with “wet” interior ingredients (mustard, mayonnaise, oil and vinegar, sauces, drippy tomatoes and the like), toastiness on the outside provides much needed contrast to the mouthfeel of the sandwich interior. These are just some of the reasons why Americans consume what I bet are millions of toasted sandwiches each year.
And yet—and I’m speaking from personal experience, folks—toasting bread comes with a downside. That downside? That downside is what I bet are hundreds or thousands of individual crumbs that fall off the sandwich as you eat it due to the loss in bread elasticity that is an inevitable byproduct of toasting. You pay for that highly desirable warm crunch with the highly undesirable task of having a table or desk covered in crumbs—a mess for you to clean up after lunch, unless you want to suffer a visit from the dreaded “roaches.”
So are you doomed to a sort of “Sophie’s Choice” between properly toasted bread and a daily shower of crumbs? Not at all. Though most people go through life oblivious to the solutions right in front of their eyes that could enable them to live more fully, you need not suffer the same fate. Mankind’s ability to make and use tools, along with our lack of body hair, is what separates us from animals. With ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness, you’ll find that the solution to toasty sandwich crumbs is not merely a dream. It’s a reality. If you follow these directions.
Purchase a vacuum cleaner with a long hose attachment, like this Home Depot 2.5 gallon Wet/ Dry model. Plug the vacuum in and place it out of sight underneath your chair. Cut a hole slightly larger than the circumference of the vacuum hose in the base of your chair, and thread the hose up through it. Continue threading the hose into the bottom of your shirt, up your body, and then down the sleeve of your dominant hand. (We recommend wearing a long-sleeved shirt or sweatshirt when preparing to eat lunch.)
When the end of the vacuum hose is equal with the end of your sleeve, attach it firmly in place with two or three punches of an industrial stapler, attaching the wrist cuff of your sleeve to the lip of the hose. Loose, baggy sleeves will help to obscure the flexible hose now running up your side and down your arm. When all of this is in place—it’s lunch time.
Stapled as you are to the end of a vacuum hose that is attached to a vacuum under your chair, getting up to fetch your toasted sandwich is impractical. Have someone bring it to you where you’re seated. Unwrap your meal and begin eating normally. The crumbs? They’ll fall down—but don’t you fret.
As you bring the sandwich back down to the table after each bite, casually move your wrist across the eating area in an unremarkable fashion. The vacuum tube attached to your wrist will instantly suck up the crumbs directly underneath the area where you are moving your hand, transporting them expeditiously down the tube and into the vacuum resting beneath your chair. To nonchalantly reach crumbs that fall far across the table, just make a grand, sweeping gesture in the course of your lunchtime conversation. If anyone asks why it sounds like a vacuum cleaner is running, pretend not to hear them.
The only thing people will notice? A very clean table at the end of a very toasty meal.