How?

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches.

I have many fond memories of PB&J's including Double Decker sandwiches at my cousin's house (midnight snacks snuck up to the attic) and Patrick (I think that was his name) in kindergarten grossing everybody out by wiping his peanut butter sandwich on the classroom floor and then eating it-ugh.

But one memory, that I always think of when making the classic sandwich, brings me to my first year in college.

As you may know, I attended The University of Minnesota - Twin Cities aka "The U". I had no major and was concentrating on classes that were required no matter what you wanted to be when you grew up. One such class was Economics (if memory serves and logic prevails, it would, officially, have been called Economics, 101).  One of the first assignments (probably the first week of classes, if not the first meeting of the class) that the professor gave was for each of us to write a paper.

Yes! a paper in the first week!

The paper was had no limit on length but they would be due in two days. The subject you ask? No, not the economic relevancy of a mill closing in a small town or the impact of supply and demand. This paper's subject was "How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich".

Friday, the class following the due date of the papers would remain in my memory for twenty plus years with no signs of diminishing anytime soon. The teacher had brought in a loaf of bread (several, I would think), a knife, and a jar each of peanut butter and jelly. He said he was to read the papers while his TA would follow the instructions...implicitly. To the letter. As he read it.

If anyone had been passing the classroom while these papers were being read, they never would have guessed that it was an economics class. One paper somehow instructed the poor gal to spread peanut butter on her palm.

After several papers had been read, the instructor felt that his assistant had been tortured enough and suspended reading the other. The moral of the story? I can't remember. Does it matter? I frequently think twice about directions (and take things as people say them, not as they mean them) because, they see through a different set of eyes and historical knowledge.