With no shame, I present a sandwich from yesteryear, served at The Viking in Ogunquit, Maine, a (now sadly defunct) build-your-own sundae place where our grandparents’ propriety demanded we lunch before indulging our grosser appetites.

The sandwich itself arrives on a heavy, chipped plate: peanut butter (the spackly kind with transfat and sugar) and cheap grape jelly (the kind that breaks into wobbly little crumbs, not suave slabs of gel) on flabby white bread, served with a tall styrofoam glass of root beer and a pile of slightly soft potato chips.

Delicately insert one chip into sandwich. Do not break the chip. Do not let Granny catch you “playing with your food.” Take a bite and feel the crunch under your teeth meld with the unctuous pb and the cool jelly. Sip root beer and feel the fizz dance in your mouth. Eat to the very edge of the chip.

Covertly watch Granny until she’s occupied reprimanding one of your siblings; it won’t be long. Insert another chip.

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