Have you had a gyro at Sam’s Deli & Grill? It’s not life changing but there is no such thing as a life changing lunch. There is such thing as day changing lunch.

I go out of my way, plan meetings, and otherwise shirk responsibilities to eat there. Move about for the chance of this wrap. It’s fabulous.

Just yesterday I woke up at 6:03 AM and the damn thing was on my mind. They open at 9:00 so I had to wait, but it was worth it.

The funny thing is they still ask me if I want it all the way. Years ago I wore more important shirts and would occasionally wend my day to a gyro and I’d ask for it with light sauce. I had an incident with a tzatziki spill and a big dry cleaning bill so light sauce was precautionary for a while. I’m impressed they remember my order. But sundries aside you need to go full on. The sauce is amazing.

Don’t ask me about the sauteed mushrooms. We’ll be here all day.

Let’s skip to soccer.

Soccer is key to the place. It’s always on and… stop a sec. I’m assuming the guy that runs it is named Sam. I suspect so, but in twenty or so years of stopping by I never asked. The place is called Sam’s so I’m a terrible person and he should revile me unless he doesn’t know my name because that makes us co-conspirators in this nonsense crime.

Back to soccer… assuming the absurdly nice guy that runs the place is named Sam, Sam is always playing soccer on his tvs (television.)

Back before the universe gave us wifi and tvs (televisions) that would fit in the space of a ballerina’s wink Sam would buy the tournaments on pay per view. That was our access.

This sounds weird to people who have the complete access to the world’s knowledge occasionally vibrating in their pocket, but once we had a back page in Sports Illustrated that told us what one of the thousands of soccer teams had managed. Per week. That was it. I seriously got excited when a saw a sentence informing me that Johan Cruyff scored a goal. Sam gave us live action with a side of fries.

I remember a day when his fat box 26 or so inch tech was being stared at by the bulk of the Birmingham men’s league; the front guys giving updates to the back NY Stock exchange style because the screen was so small and we could only get so close. “Was that a card?” “Why wasn’t that a card?” “Who’s playing?”

His screens are bigger now and he’s so busy. I’m not kidding when I say that Sam (probably named Sam) has ignored by kitchen necessity more soccer than most of the ardent have had a chance to see.