Recently a newspaper reported that a 41 year-old man choked to death on large ham sandwich.
By now, I can feel you elbowing me in the ribs and I imagine you winking at me in a knowingly way, as from one big liar to another. I can just tell! No need to. I swear it's true, cross my heart and hope to choke!
I agree with you that the story is most definitely a non-starter. To begin with, the title should never have been “Man chokes to death on large ham sandwich”. Only retired people would bother to read such an article. Now, if it had been “Man killed by ham sandwich”, that would have drawn a much larger audience.
Then, having gone through the whole narrative, I was disappointed to find out that the man had actually gone to the kitchen to prepare the sandwich himself. If, instead, it had been brought to him by his wife or by his mother-in-law, you could have there the beginnings of a fascinating plot, worthy perhaps of a prize-winning novel. As it stands, the whole thing falls flat like a cake without yeast. Not even Virginia Woolf, if she were alive, would bother to write about it.
Thus, as the story is presented, the only comment I can offer is: had the man been Jewish or Muslim, he would have never choked on a ham sandwich.
