iStockIn an era where every blogger hopes his or her Internet musings will be turned into a movie (it worked for Julie of Julie & Julia, the 40 Days of Dating non-couple just scored a big deal for the big screen), 300sandwiches.com is every chauvinist's favorite rom-com. Probably starring Katherine Heigl.
Today, the blog made headlines when New York Post senior reporter Stephanie Smith revealed herself to be the writer, in a Post post titled "I'm 124 Sandwiches Away From an Engagement Ring."
Smith describes herself on the blog as "a woman who loves her man" and "never backs down from a challenge." That man is her boyfriend of two years, Eric Schulte, "an Alexander Skarsgård look-alike" who is vampiric in appearance but does not look like Alexander Skarsgård.
On her site, she writes, in the third person, "Though he is the better chef of the twosome, he is satisfied with her making him a sandwich every once in a while." (Emphasis, ours. Fair warning, if you rolled your eyes at that, they may fall out of your head before the end of this story.)
Sandwiches. The crux of this nonsense.
"'Make me a sandwich.' That's what my boyfriend, E, asks without fail every morning." It almost doesn't seem worth it to point out that that is not a question, especially after reading this same sentiment expanded upon in her Post article:
Each morning, he would ask, "Honey, how long you have been awake?"
"About 15 minutes," I'd reply.
"You've been up for 15 minutes and you haven't made me a sandwich?"
Admittedly, that is a question.
While Eric was eating one of her sandwiches he exclaimed, "Babes, this is delicious!...This is the best sandwich ever. You're, like, 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring."
So Babes set out to make 300 sandwiches, justifying it by saying, "Sandwiches meant more to him than nice gifts, regular sex or any other incentive I could use to get him closer to putting a ring on it."
Really, from there, the story spirals into utter insanity and you're left wondering, "Is this satire? This has to be satire. Is this satire?" Babes cheerfully explains that she "made sandwiches to get [herself] out of the doghouse. Like No. 67...to make up for my being 45 minutes late for dinner the night before." After working long hours at events, she "found [herself] stumbling into the kitchen to make Eric a sandwich while I still had on my high heels and party dress."
Yet there was a problem.
Not the problem you'd think.
The problem: Babes contemplates, "Three sandwiches a week, times four weeks a month, times 12 months a year, meant I wouldn't be done until I was deep into my 30s. How would I finish 300 sandwiches in time for us to get engaged, married and have babies before I exited my childbearing years?"
As for the issue everyone else takes with all this, Babes does touch on that:
"Some might say the idea is sexist...I say come over for dinner and watch E whip up roasted duck breast with a balsamic and currant sauce with a roasted parsnip puree and shaved pickled beets in no time, and you'll see who spends more time in the kitchen," she writes, completely missing the point.
All of this really could be presented without comment. We have not presented it without comment, but we will for this tidbit. Stephanie's closing sentence. Her last sentiment to her reader:
"'You women read all these magazines to get advice on how to keep a man, and it's so easy,' he says. 'We're not complex. Just do something nice for us. Like make a sandwich.'"