I’m off to a conference for the day. With the roast beef sandwich, which barely fits in my bag. I need to get to a convention center that is a bus, a subway, and a shlep away. So onward.

I search the subway. I search Penn Station, for crying out loud. I pass by 46 beer bottle-laden scary doorways in a bad neighborhood, and not one person is looking for something to eat. Has the world enjoyed some crazy economic recovery overnight? I reach the convention center at last — only a few short blocks from where the sandwich was born yesterday, by the way — and I still have the roast beef. This means I have no room in the tote bag for gathering things at the convention.

I tell my tale of woe to a friend. That I am now on Day 2 of trying to give away this delicious-looking thing.

“What?” she asked, puzzled. “I’ll take that sandwich right now.”

So I hand it over to happy Colleen, and although she wasn’t financially needy, it was true that it saved her from having to leave her very busy booth. I felt extremely proud. Because not only did I toil over the course of two days to find the sandwich a good home, but I was beginning to realize that it was 11:45 a.m., and that that damn sandwich was beginning to look mighty fine indeed.

Sacrifice can be satisfying.